Loblaws to enhance PC Express using new technology

Loblaws has announced plans to invest in its PC Express service by building an “automated picking facility” at one of its locations.

The company will partner with Takeoff Technologies to enable the PC Express service to provide online grocery orders to customers faster and more accurately through the automated warehouse.

The service will launch in 2020 and will include technology that will have the ability to support PC Express orders in select stores that are near the automated picking facility.

Construction has begun at one of the GTA  locations, where the company will install a 12,000 square foot picking facility within the store.

Here’s how it will work:

• Customers order as usual through PC Express
• At the automated picking facility, once an order is received it may be split by automated picking and/or in-store picking, depending on the products requested. Instead of walking the store to pick groceries, our automated facility brings groceries directly to a Loblaws colleague to pick and pack.
• Once complete, the order goes to a ‘staging area’ where another Loblaws colleague reviews the order and stores it in the appropriate temperature zone (frozen, chilled or, room temperature). The order is then combined with the in-store picked items if necessary.
• Customers arrive and their order is brought out to their car.

Loblaws currently has 700 PC Express pick up locations at transit stations, pharmacies and grocery stores across the country.