February 2002

The operation includes payment processing, call centre management, stock control, warehousing and delivery. Zendor has even played a part in developing the company's current Web site, which was unveiled last year.

This is one of the first Internet fulfilment contracts announced publicly by Zendor, which has so far been guarded about disclosing details of specific client operations. The two customers usually quoted are New Look and River Island, although the company is also working for other high-street retailers, and has also revealed that it is doing consultancy work for Arcadia and Safeway.

 

For Toys R Us the decision to outsource the work to Zendor underlines a divergence in approach between its UK and US operations. Fulfilment for the group's American home shopping business is now handled by Amazon.com under a strategic alliance announced in August 2000, and the two operate a co-branded Web site. But when that deal was revealed, the group indicated that it might take a different approach in Britain, and this is borne out in the Zendor contract.

Among the attractions of the Zendor operation cited by the company is its scaleability, which gives ToysR Us scope to flex its resources to meet peaks such as the Christmas rush. The company says the level of fulfilment handled in the run-up to the holiday was higher than expected.

Other services being provided by Zendor include integration with back-end processes and online fraud checking. Zendor is also harnessing the resources of parent N Brown's extensive courier network to handle final deliveries.

Toys R Us offers not only toys, but also video games, baby products, bikes and home entertainment products such as PCs, mobile phones and DVD players.