Robots dance above the two-story shafts at the Catch Group's warehouse, picking up and sorting online orders. Credit:Penny Stephens A team of just four pickers on the ground takes stock from the bins and checks off each order. Two years ago, Catch Group had never owned a piece of conveyer, let alone a piece of automation. Packing each order could take up to 10 minutes, with staff walking about 10 kilometres each day as they pushed trolleys from item to item across the warehouse floor. Some $20 million later, the Truganina fulfillment centre in Melbourne, servicing Catchoftheday.com.au, Scoopon.com.au, Mumgo.com.au and Groceryrun.com.au, has doubled its capacity to process 25,000 orders a day, and halved delivery time.

It took Mr Leibovich and head of logistics Jon Northorpe a year of inspecting different robotic solutions around the country and in Asia before they settled on the Swisslog AutoStore. It was chosen partly because the Catch Group warehouse is as tall as a plane hangar, and the 16-tall stack of bins - about two stories high - makes good use of the space. It's also super easy to operate. A programming station controls the robots wirelessly, mapping the most efficient path for them to fulfil orders as they drop in. For maintenance, Mr Leibovich says the robots are "no more complicated than a vacuum cleaner with a couple of belts". They run on two car batteries and return to their individual charging bays as needed.

Other systems, like Amazon's Kiva robots, provide similar efficiencies, but Mr Northorpe doubts these would pass Australia's strict occupational health and safety regulations. The Swisslog robots are housed safely behind perspex. The scale of the system is a world first in e-commerce. The technology is used by global companies like Texas Instruments and UK supermarket chain ASDA, but at lower volumes, according to Mr Northorpe. "Nobody in the world is doing the volume of orders in a day that we're doing with it," he says. Receiving around 250,000 visitors daily, Catchoftheday.com.au is one of Australia's most visited shopping sites, and the group is one of Australia Post's largest customers for parcel delivery. Christmas typically boosts sales by 20 to 25 per cent. In previous years, that has meant having to put the brakes on orders, as the warehouse was unable to keep up with demand.

This year, there'll be no delays. "We could never have done that without investing in automation, because humans can only do so much manually," Mr Leibovich says promising the robots haven't replaced any staff. Instead, automation will accommodate further growth. Catch Group's annual turnover is surging 26 per cent year-on-year, and it's had seven different warehouses in seven years. This time, there's enough room to double the AutoStore grid in the warehouse, as needed. That would enable the company to process up to 50,000 orders in a day. It would also allow it to bump up the number of different items on offer - currently around 26,000 - thereby appealing to a wider audience, and driving more sales.

Telsyte retail analyst Steven Noble says while the company is not comparable to that online mammoth Amazon, it is a significant player in Australia capable of causing Coles and Woolworths some headaches. "It is growing as fast and wide as possible, marking the territory as their own, making it hard for others to enter," he says. Mr Leibovich is confident the new technology has put the company leaps and bounds ahead of the local competition. Australian businesses have a "phobia" of robotics, he says, and those that are looking to automate will have years of sourcing and planning ahead of them. Mr Leibovich has been up in a scissor lift with Mr Northorpe, watching the robots from above as they dance across the AutoStore grid.