T2 revolves around their love for reimagining and reinventing the humble tea leaf. They are an Australian home bred brand that started in 1996 and has grown from strength to strength, diversifying and expanding across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the USA. They have been part of the Unilever family since 2013. Their $150M revenue comes from 90+ stores, wholesale teas, tea wares, service, and support to restaurants, cafes, hotels, food purveyors, corporate clients and eCommerce.
T2’s physical stores were largely singular in purpose. Consumers travelled there to view and sample products, pay for them, and take them home. The choice was mostly limited to what was in stock and accessible during regular store hours.
Blurring the lines between traditional physical stores and direct-to-consumer (DTC) shopping had been accelerating, with click-and-collect consumers increasingly engaged in digital and physical touchpoints when making purchases.
T2 had the vision to transform its physical stores into assets rather than have them as liabilities in the wake of the COVID pandemic and associated lockdowns.
Some of the challenges and issues that impacted this strategic goal were as follows:
T2 needed an API-led solution to unlock processes and data trapped in these legacy technologies to unify its fulfilment and inventory update process to accelerate innovation. They needed to unbundle and re-bundle IT operations to focus on driving growth regardless of the channel.
T2 and MakeSense worked together to drive the following goals:
The API integration solution for T2 enabled their storefront locations to use ship-from-store fulfilment to increase sales and optimise inventory management. Ship-from-store fulfilment helps T2 leverage its physical retail space to fulfil online sales by using in-store inventory – essentially turning its retail outlets into distribution centres and seamlessly connecting online demand to in-store inventory.
MakeSense delivered a new approach to unify the fulfilment, distribution system and inventory management and enable an omnichannel customer experience across eCommerce and physical stores.
MakeSense created an integrated sales experience to see customers as a channel. They created customer experiences and a brand strategy to improve their sales and quickly maintain competitive differentiation.
T2 successfully converted their stores into powerful sources of brand advertising that are critical to overall brand success, regardless of transactional channel.
The business benefits included: