Scaling on demand — quick commerce without disruption.
Omnivore powers the mission-critical system connecting 985 Coles Liquor stores across Australia to Uber Eats and DoorDash – over the critical 2025 Christmas period, it needed to process hundreds of thousands of orders in real time without failure.
At peak, each order was received, processed and routed in under 2 seconds. In an on-demand environment, that speed isn’t a luxury — it’s a requirement.
There’s no overnight recovery window; orders need to be fulfilled in seconds, not hours. If something breaks, the impact is immediate, and at this scale, even small issues don’t stay contained — they compound quickly.
At the same time, Coles Liquor was undergoing significant operational change across its Liquorland, First Choice Liquor Market and Vintage Cellars brands – consolidating fulfillment systems, automating manual processes and expanding into on-demand delivery.
All of this was happening in the lead-up to peak trading so the challenge wasn’t just growth.
It was rebuilding the underlying system to handle extreme volume, in real time, without failure.
A system that could operate with the reliability of telco infrastructure to process every order, every time, without delay.
The Challenge
At the time, Coles Liquor was simplifying how it operated behind the scenes.
That meant bringing multiple fulfilment streams into fewer, more consistent systems, and reducing variation across stores and channels. At the same time, they were introducing more automation by removing manual steps to improve speed, consistency and overall throughput.
On its own, that’s complex, but layered on top of this was something far more demanding: the move into on-demand delivery.
Unlike traditional fulfillment, this isn’t a next-day or scheduled model. Orders need to be processed, routed and fulfilled in seconds.
That introduces a different kind of pressure:
- Tighter delivery expectations
- More unpredictable order patterns
- Almost zero tolerance for error
It also creates a constant stream of edge cases — substitutions, partial orders, cancellations — all of which need to be handled instantly and cleanly, without creating noise for store or support teams. And at this scale, small inefficiencies don’t stay small.
They multiply quickly.
At our scale, operational stability is everything. Omnivore enabled a more controlled and predictable environment — reducing operational noise such as manual reconciliation, repeated checks and error chasing, while improving visibility across the system.
This allowed the team to focus on true exceptions and continuous improvement, rather than constant firefighting. It also shifted our operations toward a more proactive model, with clearer visibility, faster diagnosis and fewer handoffs when issues did arise. A great result for us.
Michael Hoekman
National Operations Manager, Coles Liquor
The Risk
Heading into peak trading, the priority was simple: nothing can break.
Because in an environment where orders are processed in seconds and fulfilled in minutes, there’s no buffer to recover. If something fails, the impact is immediate and it spreads quickly.
The team was focused on avoiding system instability creating order backlogs, duplicate work or manual recovery processes and silent failures that degrade the customer experience.
Things like missed delivery windows, incorrect order updates and inconsistent substitutions are the kinds of issues that are easy to miss early, but become highly visible at scale.
The Omnivore Approach
The goal wasn’t perfection – it was control.
To build a system that could operate reliably under pressure, even at peak, the focus shifted to creating an environment where issues could be managed calmly and consistently.
That meant keeping order flow predictable, handling exceptions quickly and cleanly and having confidence the systems would hold under pressure.
Rather than relying on reactive fixes, the focus shifted to spotting issues earlier, containing them faster and resolving them without disruption.
The Outcome for Coles
Going into the 2025 Christmas period, the goal was control, efficiency and solid oversight.
With Omnivore in place, Coles Liquor was able to maintain stable operations across all channels, process orders reliably at peak demand and avoid manual workarounds or late-night recovery efforts.
The system held, even under pressure. More importantly, the team stayed in control operating with confidence and without compromise.
Team Impact
One of the biggest shifts was in how the team worked day-to-day. Before, a lot of time was spent on manual reconciliation, validation checks and resolving discrepancies across systems.
With stronger infrastructure and automation in place, these processes became more streamline and efficient. This reduced operational complexity and enabled the to focus on improving processes and making faster, more informed decisions.
Ultimately, this meant the team could focus on running the business, supported by systems that were more consistent, reliable and scalable.
What This Means
For large retailers, marketplaces and on-demand channels aren’t side projects. They’re part of the core operating model. For Coles Liquor, this proved that even in a high pressure, real time environment, you can simplify without slowing down, automate without losing visibility, and scale without introducing risk.
Omnivore helped bring everything into one place, enabling Coles Liquor to operate across multiple channels, maintain stability under pressure and run consistently across operations.
These improvements meant that the team could focus on driving the business forward, not managing the systems behind it.
