DIA Case Study 9 But dark stores were only a short-term fix, so DIA started simultaneously integrating its physical stores, with clusters of 25-30 newly added stores per week. By July 2020, in just three and a half months, DIA integrated 352 branches, making its broad product offering available quickly and safely to its customers. “The support of the VTEX team was key to achieving the implementation in record time, allowing us to scale our operations further.” Fernanda Onzari Nobua, Ecommerce Director of DIA Argentina “The support of all DIA teams was necessary.” Fernanda Onzari Nobua, Ecommerce Director of DIA Argentina However, bringing ecommerce into the world of brick-and-mortar retail had massive implications for DIA’s employees, both procedural and cultural. They had to be brought up to speed on new technologies and processes to support the ship-from-store and pick-up in-store operations, which implied training sessions, on top of restructuring – all in record time and in the middle of the pandemic.