The Black Friday count down begins……It is essential for businesses to plan and prepare for Black Friday and improve issues from previous years including warehouse storage to ensure 2015 runs as smoothly and effectively as possible.
Some stores had to contend with in-store fighting, others serious fulfilment issues with the likes of Amazon and Dixon Carphone struggling to keep on top of demand – so with predictions that the one day event is forecast to become the UK’s first £1bn online shopping day, according to digital consultancy Salmon, there is a lot of pressure on retailers to ensure they have the storage facilities and fulfilment requirements necessary to deal with demand.
Figures released for Black Friday 2014 by IMRG (industry association for online retail) showed that there were 404,835 orders placed on 28th November 2014 with an estimated spend of £810 million. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are all relatively new events to the UK and are proving to cause immense strain on supply chains – meaning logistics planners are having to ensure the predicted sales for 2015 run smoothly.
With the popularity of mobile search growing, consumers have access to the very latest and best product deals meaning that competition between retailers on product availability and delivery performance is high. Planners and and logistics teams should be looking at the next few months and identifying if there is sufficient warehouse storage space to deal with increased stock for Black Friday, Christmas and the Christmas sales. Staffing and resourcing issues is another key area that businesses need to plan for over these periods.
Traditionally August and September are busy months for those looking for increased warehouse capacity. Some businesses will be looking to partner with logistics service providers for extra space and resources but due to increases in demand for space this option may not be available. So it is imperative that companies look at their own warehouse capacity and develop a plan to increase their warehouse storage – whether that be in the form of a mezzanine floor, additional storage shelving or increased pallet racking.
With changes in the way consumers are purchasing and the fact that we are living in a more buoyant economy, businesses have to deal with demand and fulfilment issues or they will miss out as their competitors planning become apparent.
Are you ready for 27th November?!