Online grocery is one of the most complex channels in retail. Tight margins, complex operations and rising customer expectations around freshness, speed, cost and accuracy all put pressure on grocers to manage their supply chains with maximum efficiency. That’s why getting fulfilment right isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s the foundation of sustainable online growth.

Ocado’s products have developed significantly since we first started licensing our technology internationally in 2017. They have expanded to reflect the wide range of partners that we have today, and the wide variety of markets we operate in. 

They also reflect our increased ability to meet retailers wherever they are on their ecommerce journey, at any level of business maturity, and a wide range of market scenarios.

Today our partners deploy fulfilment networks with Ocado ranging from AI-powered fulfilment software in stores and dark stores, to hybrids of manual and automated fulfilment, to a range of fully automated CFCs ranging from the micro, to the very large, and anything in between. 

Crucially, we also work with our partners to shape the right mix based on their goals and operating environment in different geographies, as well as their overall long-term strategy. All of this runs on a single, data-led platform: the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP).

We believe that no other provider offers the same breadth of solutions, the same level of end-to-end integration or the same depth of expertise. With over 25 years shaping the future of online grocery, Ocado knows what works, what scales and what delivers.

In this article, we’ll explore how our flexible fulfilment toolkit helps retailers succeed in a variety of real-world scenarios, and why getting the mix right is critical to profitable, scalable online grocery that exceeds customer expectations.

Designing for local conditions

The conditions that shape success in online grocery fulfilment, from customer expectations and product range, to volumes to labour costs, to catchment densities and store estates, vary widely between countries, regions and even cities.

Retailers need the flexibility to respond to local dynamics and to evolve their operations as demand, economics and competition develops. At Ocado Group, we help partners do just that.

Whether it’s deploying automated CFCs to meet and serve dense, fast-growing demand with maximum efficiency, or launching a manual store fulfilment service to suit a lower labour cost or lower density market, we partner with grocery retailers to design, deploy and refine their fulfilment strategy in every scenario. 

Our fulfilment solutions are underpinned by the end-to-end Ocado Smart Platform, enabling them to work together seamlessly, unlocking efficiencies not just in fulfilment, but across the entire grocery supply chain.

Working with our partners

Bon Preu: Building an online grocery service from the ground up

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Bon Preu, a Catalonian grocery retailer, wanted to build an online grocery operation almost from scratch. The goal was to launch quickly across the market, and scale sustainably

Bon Preu partnered with Ocado Group in 2017, becoming our first international partner. It launched its online business using Ocado’s In-Store Fulfilment (ISF) solution, enabling orders to be picked and dispatched from existing stores.

As demand accelerated, Bon Preu added two dark stores (dedicated facilities designed exclusively for manual online fulfilment) also powered by Ocado’s ISF technology. The business has since grown well ahead of the wider online channel in Spain and has become the leading online grocery proposition in Catalonia, recognised by the OCU in 2024 as the highest-rated online grocery service in Spain.

In 2025, Bon Preu announced plans to open a Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC) in Parets del Vallès. The new automated facility will enable Bon Preu customers to benefit from an even broader range, greater freshness and higher perfect order rate. It will also bring the significant cost efficiencies of Ocado's robotic automation and a pathway to fully-costed online grocery profitability.

Bon Preu is an example of a retailer using the full strategic toolkit that Ocado offers. They have already developed a market-leading online proposition in Catalonia with Ocado's In-Store Fulfilment technology and will now benefit from a highly automated CFC, offering an enhanced customer proposition and a significantly lower cost-to-serve. 

This journey demonstrates how Ocado enables a retailer like Bon Preu to launch quickly, scale with confidence, and evolve their fulfilment strategy in line with growth.

Coles: Scaling from manual to automated fulfilment

Coles, one of Australia’s largest grocery retailers, had built a large online grocery business and wanted to transition large volumes from manual fulfilment into world leading automation in Victoria and New South Wales

We have leveraged our automated CFCs, our software platform, and partner success teams to support Coles in more efficiently serving their shoppers in those key markets, as well as meeting growing demand.

We successfully transitioned significant volumes from manual fulfilment in stores to more efficient, OSP powered automated fulfilment in Victoria and New South Wales. Coles has reported several key improvements:

• Improved availability, freshness and range for orders fulfilled through CFCs
• Improved availability of delivery slots - to better meet unserved demand
• A significant uplift in customer Net Promoter Scores (NPS), particularly for those orders fulfilled via CFCs
• Perfect order rates “continuing to track at more than double the national home delivery rate.”

Coles’ experience demonstrates how Ocado’s automated solutions can deliver fast service improvements and lay foundations for further, scalable, long-term growth.

Panda: Growing in an earlier stage online market

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Panda, a major grocery retailer in Saudi Arabia, needed to build its online grocery capability in a market still developing in terms of labour cost, digital adoption and order volume. It required a fulfilment model that could deliver results quickly, and evolve with demand. 

Panda launched its online proposition using Ocado’s In-Store Fulfilment solution, enabling orders to be picked and packed from its existing store network.

At full roll out, the Ocado Smart Platform will support Panda’s full online value chain with a suite of tools that help them to optimise fulfilment operations —including pick route optimisation, last mile planning, and data-driven management analytics to keep efficiency high and costs controlled.

With OSP live, Panda can scale its online operation in line with the market, serving customers efficiently today while laying the groundwork for an evolving fulfilment network and future growth.

Ocado Retail: Scaling succesfully in a competitive online market

Ocado Retail is a pure play online grocer in a mature ecommerce grocery market. It wants to continue scaling quickly, with positive economics. It also wants to maintain a customer proposition that evolves ahead of the competitive UK online channel.

Ocado Retail leverages a network of automated CFCs across a range of sizes, supported by a nationwide spoke network to ensure maximum geographic coverage. It also uses automated micro-FCs to serve an immediacy proposition in select, dense catchments. Ocado’s fulfilment is enabled by Ocado’s end-to-end, integrated software solutions, powering web-shop, supply chain and last mile

As a result, ocado.com continues to be the fastest growing grocer in the UK grocery market, now with more than 1m active customers nationwide. At HY25 Ocado Retail achieved a 3.3% EBITDA with a medium term high-mid single digit EBITDA trajectory. In July 2025 Ocado Retail was named as the Online Service of the Year at The Grocer Gold Awards.

The right mix for scalable success

A key goal for grocery retailers online is to make the right  fulfilment choices in the right places, balancing the short-term tactical wins against long-term strategic goals, and having the strategic flexibility to evolve as the business develops

Ocado Group combines deep online grocery expertise with proprietary technology to deliver a wide spectrum of fulfilment solutions—all within one intelligent, integrated platform.