IKEA | Warehouse-to-store replenishment

Autonomous warehouse-to-store replenishment for IKEA, reducing average customer waiting time from 6 hours to 2 hours and lowering unit transport cost by 50%.

Large-format retail operations often face fluctuating inventory demand across stores. When selected items are temporarily unavailable in-store, traditional replenishment can require manual coordination, fixed vehicle scheduling, and labour-intensive loading and unloading, leading to longer customer waiting times and higher operating costs.

In IKEA's Hefei deployment, Neolix autonomous vehicles support flexible warehouse-to-store replenishment for small-batch orders. Once a store receives an order, vehicles can be dispatched from the warehouse to the store to enable faster replenishment and same-day pickup. With large cargo box and cage modules, the solution can support different goods formats while reducing manual handling at both ends of the route.

The deployment improves replenishment responsiveness, enhances loading and unloading safety, and provides a scalable autonomous logistics model for large-format retail and home furnishing scenarios.

Results

• The average customer waiting time was reduced from 6 hours to 2 hours.
• Unit transport cost reduced by 50%.
• Cumulative safe operating mileage reached 75,000 km.
• Supports flexible small-batch replenishment from warehouse to store.
• Reduces manual loading and unloading requirements while improving operational safety.