Black Friday: Last minute strategies to boost warehouse efficiency

A welcome import from the United States, Black Friday has grown to become one of UK’s biggest and busiest retail events.

Industry group IMRG reported that online Black Friday sales grew 11.7% to £1.4bn in 2017 and e-commerce businesses will be targeting even bigger returns this year.

But keen bargain hunters can push warehouse operations to their limit. Ideally, warehouse managers would prepare for Black Friday months in advance, but here are some last minute strategies that can help you meet the challenge.

Optimise warehouse layout

Warehouse layout is crucial to success over busy periods. Reorganising and prioritising key products based on historical and forecasted sales data can help improve picking efficiency.

Consider moving heavily discounted products and best-sellers closer to the despatch area; this will shorten the pick routes and reduce the pick times of busy skus. Products that sell well together can also be arranged into groups in the warehouse to improve cluster picking.

Stress-test operations and warehouse efficiency

With a few weeks to go until Black Friday, stress-testing warehouse operations is a good way of seeing which systems cope and which fail with the extra demand.

Organise a dry run and ask workers to increase output to triple or quadruple normal levels to help identify and improve areas of weakness before the Black Friday crunch.

Redeploy resources

Warehouses that rely heavily on manual labour rather than automated systems may have no choice but to bring in extra staff.

Local recruitment agencies may be able to provide more workers, however the time and cost involved in training can make this a sometimes futile experience. Time may be better invested cross training team members from other departments to pitch in during this busy period. Empowering staff with extra training is always a mutually beneficial experience.

Not a quick fix but perhaps the best long-term solution is the introduction of intuitive warehouse management software that will help boost efficiency (all year round), reduce staff turnover and make inducting new staff much easier.

Last-minute preparations

Details can make all the difference on Black Friday. Simple things like making sure your warehouse is clean and tidy, and inventory is in the right place, can eliminate unnecessary operational barriers and keep workers on-task.

Checking that warehouse efficiency software and hardware, such as barcode scanners, are functioning normally could prevent a meltdown at a critical time. Don’t forget to put time aside to communicate with staff and any third-party providers to make sure that everyone knows what’s expected when the time comes.

Limit the operational burden

If there just isn’t enough time to prepare for Black Friday properly, firms can limit their operational burden by spreading product offers into Cyber Monday and beyond. Amazon, the online retailer with the biggest operational capacity in the UK, spreads offers over the weekend and into December.

You could also consider putting a freeze on your express delivery services during promotional periods to ease pressure and limit temporary labour challenges.

Learn from the experience

Black Friday can be hellish for warehouse managers. But the experience can be used to kick-start long-term operational improvements.

By reflecting on what worked and what didn’t work during this year’s rush, you can identify key priorities for new investment for the future.

Keymas provides a range of solutions to boost warehouse efficiency, including picking systems, conveyor systems and full warehouse management systems that manage stock, optimise storage, direct pickers and more.

Warehouse efficiency solutions aren’t one-size-fits-all. Keymas will take a firm’s size, operational objectives and other factors into account and advise on the best solution to meet an organisation’s needs.

If you’d like to discuss your warehouse efficiency needs please contact the Keymas team.