A wine shop's pickup counter had become its bottleneck — customers waiting while staff hunted for orders. We built slot-based pickup scheduling with packing queues and coded ready notices. Average pickup wait dropped from 12 minutes to under two.
Typical results
96%
Packed before the slot
+31%
Click-and-collect volume
0
Mixed-up handoffs
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Online orders promised 'pickup anytime,' so everyone came at 6pm. Customers queued while staff dug through shelves of unlabeled bags, orders were sometimes handed to the wrong person, and only 60% were actually packed when the buyer arrived. The counter chaos ate into in-store sales and produced a daily stream of 'is my order ready?' calls.
Before and after
Average pickup wait
−83%Orders packed before slot
+60%'Is it ready?' calls per day
−87%The automation
We added slot selection to checkout, synced to real store capacity so rush hours never overbook. Every order drops into a packing queue ordered by slot time; when staff mark it packed, the customer automatically receives a WhatsApp ready notice with a unique pickup code. At the counter, staff scan the code, the exact order is called out, and the handoff is logged. No-show slots release themselves for rebooking.
How it works
- 01
Slot selection
Checkout offers pickup windows synced to real staff capacity, so rush hours never overbook.
- 02
Packing queue
Each order lands in a packing queue prioritized by its slot time — nothing packed too late, nothing too early.
- 03
Ready notice
When staff mark an order packed, the customer automatically gets a WhatsApp with a unique pickup code.
- 04
Code handoff
The customer shows the code, staff scan it, and the exact order changes hands in seconds.
- 05
Closing the loop
Every handoff is logged on the order, and no-show slots release themselves for rebooking.
Starts from
- Online orders
- Store capacity slots
Delivers
- Slot-timed packing queue
- WhatsApp ready notice
- Pickup-code handoff
The impact
Average pickup wait typically falls from 12 minutes to under two, and about 96% of orders are packed before the slot opens, up from 60%. 'Is it ready?' calls drop from 15 a day to two, mixed-up handoffs disappear, and click-and-collect volume tends to grow by around 31%.
Questions about this automation
How are pickup slots kept in line with real staff capacity?
The store sets how many orders its staff can hand over in each window, by day and hour. Checkout only offers windows with free capacity, so busy evening slots close once they are full. Changes to staffing or opening hours update the available slots without anyone editing the store by hand.
What happens when a customer does not show up for their slot?
Each slot has a grace period after it ends. If the pickup code has not been scanned by then, the order is flagged for staff, the customer gets a WhatsApp reminder with a rebooking link, and the unused capacity returns to the pool so other shoppers can book that window.
What is needed to set this up in an existing store?
The build needs access to the online store's checkout, a WhatsApp Business API number for ready notices, and a phone or scanner at the counter that can read pickup codes. It is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with slot selection and adding the packing queue and code handoff next.