Record breaking online shopping is fuelling increased demand for large storage and distribution facilities required by online retailers.
The forecast this Christmas is for online shoppers to spend £13 billion. The question is; how can you improve your storage space to meet the demands of the online shopper?
There are many ways to increase your warehouse storage space without having to move premises; mezzanine floors, racking and shelving are all ideal solutions:
Mezzanine floor; designed for maximising unused headroom available within your building, consider one, two or even three tiers depending on available headspace.
Racking; pallet racking is ideal for bulk storage and takes up less floor space as it frees up floor space by utilising the height available. It can be expanded and upgraded quickly and easily for future growth. Double deep racking allows pallets to be stored two deep, but still accessible from the same aisle. By reducing the number of access aisles, floor space availability is increased meaning a potential increase in pallet storage by up to 50%
Shelving; long and short span shelving is ideal for smaller items that need to be broken down into smaller batches or for hand pick items, with careful attention to labelling and/or a dedicated software programme, pick rates increase and miss picks are reduced.
By building a more efficient warehouse operation you can respond to the needs of the online shopper, customers want a value added service and a faster and more time definite fulfilment. To meet expectations of the customer it is imperative that your warehouse operates in an efficient way with limited delay or picking barriers.
Consider the following suggestions to help get your warehouse in tip top working order:
- Create colour coded labels
- Add descriptions to pick tickets
- Improve aisle navigation
- Improve space in the receiving area
- Keep up good inventory
- Know your high sellers/seasonal trend products
- Keep your staff happy
- Happy staff = happy warehouse
