"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
The odd thing is ToolStation owned by the same company seems quite
efficient for click and collect - although I generally use Screwfix due to
a more convenient branch. With them, all I have to do is show them the SMS
on my mobile for the order number.

TS used to be independent, and it showed. When Nook e-readers were
reduced to £29 each, someone in TS's IT department must have snagged a bulk
order because suddenly the branch staff were using them as handheld
reminders of the orders they were picking.

The Nooks ran Android under the hood and presumably someone in IT wrote a
custom Android app that hooked into the till system. That was a hack worthy
of a startup and probably saved them a good bunch of cash (versus going to
some industrial PC vendor and paying £500 a unit).

I don't know how much TS has been integrated into the Travis Perkins empire,
but I think they have their own distribution centres so presumably not that
much.

Theo