DC Velocity - March 2017

Discover key strategies for omni-channel warehousing success at 40th annual WERC Conference

By Annette Danek-Akey, Senior Vice President of Fulfillment, Penguin Random House Inc., and WERC 2017 Annual Conference Committee Chair Whether they’re shopping on their smartphones, tablets or “phablets”—or browsing on desktop and laptops—consumers are increasingly buying online.

The National Retail Federation estimated that

108.5 million Americans shopped online this most recent Thanksgiving weekend, including Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Internet Retailer estimated that Amazon.com did $5 billion, or

38 percent, of all online sales in that same five-day period. And last summer, UPS’ annual survey of more than 5,000 online shoppers found that, for the first time, 51 percent of consumers made more purchases online than in stores.

That’s not to say brick-and-mortar shopping is going away anytime soon. In fact, one of the best ways for traditional retailers to distinguish themselves from online exclusive retailers is the ability for consumers to see, handle, try on, and generally interact with merchandise. Further, the convenience of “order online, pick up in store” frequently trumps waiting for a shipment, as does dropping off a return for an instantaneous refund at the customer service desk— instead of the less convenient (and slower) process of shipping the item back.

Regardless of how a consumer chooses to purchase an item, retail warehouses and distribution centers face an increasingly omni-channel marketplace. Meaning they must find new ways to cope with a profusion of omni-challenges, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Among them, an uptick in unit-level picking—and not just for single e-commerce orders, but also to replenish stores more frequently with smaller shipments of mixed and broken-case products. Further, to compete with Amazon, more items must be held in inventory, even off-season, for the customer hosting a Mardi Gras-themed party in September, for example.

These challenges, along with a host of others, are being addressed in a multitude of ways in retail warehouses.

Supported by software and automated material handling equipment, omni-channel facilities are developing new strategies to satisfy the demands of both e-commerce and traditional store customers as they compete with online sellers for sales.

That’s why omni-channel retailing and warehousing is
a key topic at the Warehousing Education and Research
Professionals, to be held April 30 to May 3, 2017 in Fort
Worth, Texas. Among the 80 different sessions, several
breakout presentations and Peer-2-Peer discussions
address the omni-channel challenges, as do tours of
three distribution facilities serving customers of The
Container Store, Dillard’s and Walmart.

Among the breakout presentations, WERC Conference
attendees will learn:
• How BSN Sports improved its distribution center
operations to handle changing consumer profiles,
and to deal with an increase in the number of
products it handles and small e-commerce orders
it processes. By implementing new equipment,
software and technology, the facility has
maintained the same footprint.

• Why inventory sharing between e-commerce and retail outlets has reduced The Container Store’s overall supply chain costs. Through a new automated fulfillment solution, the operation has optimized labor productivity, order accuracy and cycle times.

• New approaches to carton optimization for a reduction in shipping costs that include an analysis of order profiles and recommendations for how to select the optimal array of shipping cartons and/or made-to-order packaging.

• Integrative strategies for managing reverse logistics challenges—including multiple return destinations, asset recovery, end-of-life concerns and new regulations—across omni-channel fulfillment operations.

Further, Peer-2-Peer discussion session topics will give participants the chance to ask questions, share insights and brainstorm solutions for meeting retail customers’ demands for fast and agile order fulfillment, and how to optimally manage both forward and reverse logistics shipments.