Case Study: Smyths Toys achieves scalable online fulfillment and service excellence with SAP HANA

Surviving Disruption by Meeting Surging Online Demand with Continued Service Excellence

Smyths Toys, one of Europe’s largest specialist toy retailers with 227 stores, was forced to rely entirely on online sales when physical stores closed in 2020. The sudden surge in web traffic during holiday peaks and the launch of next‑generation game consoles put extreme pressure on its site, fulfillment capacity, stock accuracy, and carrier availability, requiring rapid scalability and uninterrupted customer service.

Smyths accelerated its cloud-based SAP landscape—SAP ERP on HANA, SAP Customer Experience, and SAP Omnichannel POS—added two web-fulfillment warehouses and a ship‑from‑store model using 70 stores, and worked with ZakApps to optimize databases, interfaces, and load-balancing. The changes delivered on-demand scalability, near‑real‑time stock and order flows, high availability and performance, and sustained service excellence that let the retailer meet unprecedented online demand.

Smyths Toys

Rob Wilson

Chief Technology Officer