It’s a real pleasure to welcome The Create Better Group to the Descartes’ Ecommerce network as the latest online retailer to implement Peoplevox in their warehouse. With customer transactions in Q1 already +156% v 2020, the Group’s existing WMS and fulfilllment operation was no longer delivering against this heightened customer demand. In order to facilitate further growth, putting Peoplevox in was part of a total warehouse overhaul.
Peter Kitchener, COO at Create Better Group, commented:
“Our existing WMS was putting barriers in our way. Warehousing is at the heart of our customer experience. Our decision to partner with Peoplevox has helped to improve operations hugely. Peoplevox are a reputable company with a number of large, blue-chip organisations under their wing, and working with them has given us the power to build our brand around scalable fulfilllment.
The move to Peoplevox was also mapped at the same time as a complete overhaul of our racking system, aided by local company, UK Racking, to utilise our space to the maximum. Working with both companies at the same time allowed me to plan optimal locations, looking at size and quantity of SKUs. We now have more than double the number of pick locations and a bulk pallet storage that can be picked from at both levels. I’m pleased to say that our process can now adapt accordingly to customer demand at a moments notice, which is even more important with ongoing business growth. Peoplevox is a huge step forward from where we were.
The final piece of the jigsaw the adjustment of our shift patterns from one shift, to two shifts, which will go a long way towards delivering an improved customer experience as we can now dispatch later into the evening.”
Establishing some clear goals was key to this project:
- Make better use of existing warehouse space, rather than up-size unnecessarily
- Increase pickable locations to cut down on replenishment tasks
- Gain the ability to adapt for spiking sales volumes and customer demands
Whilst spiking sales is a clear indication any company is on the path to growth, without the fundamentals working well in the background, there’s a real chance those new customers stay as one time customers, based on a sub-standard experience like having their order cancelled last minute, or receiving the wrong item thanks to a mispick.
However, as The Create Better Group are finding out, putting in a system that allows them to scale their capacity for peak periods and offering a better service underpins a business with loyal, repeat customers.
