How to Master Your Warehouse during Peak Season – Part I – The Challenge

If you're a consumer goods importer or distributor preparing for a peak season, you know how tough it is. The stakes are high, the environment is chaotic, the deadlines are looming, and for a lot of businesses, that's where you make a large portion of your profits.

So, what does all of this come down to? The warehouse.

It's all about the warehouse. And maximizing your efficiency within it.

That's how you thrive during peak season.

We recognize that that's easier said than done. And the challenges are, well, challenging.

In this post, we're going to highlight what are likely your most significant warehouse management challenges during peak season. Every business operates differently—different goals, methods and best practices. But the hurdles you face, no matter your vertical or industry, tend to remain fairly consistent.

1. Keeping up with the volume of direct-to-consumer (DTC) orders Fewer customers are willing to leave their homes to go pick up products and goods. A trend that's only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. So what do consumers do instead? They order online for home delivery. And they want them delivered as quickly as possible.

   If you're a consumer goods importer or distributor who deals with DTC, managing all these new orders is undoubtedly top of mind. And if you're in the middle of peak season, planning and prepping all of these single-parcel shipments isn't easy. That's thousands and thousands of shipments to manage within your warehouse.

2. The time it takes to pull and pack orders Picking and pulling product order by order takes a lot of time. If you have 100 orders to process, you're walking up and down the aisles 100 different times. This process is inefficient and far too slow to keep up with DTC fulfillment demand and volume. You need to be able to efficiently allocate, pick, pack, replenish, and track your inventory and orders–and you need to do this consistently and in real-time as those orders continue to come in.

3. Using multiple systems for labels and paperwork When you're working on disparate systems, even the simplest tasks are complicated. Without integration, without your systems talking to one another and sharing data, there's no way to ensure everyone on your team is working off the same information. There's no way to ensure the information is accurate and up-to-date. There's no way to automate data entry. There's no way to streamline label printing and paperwork. Simply: when using multiple, disparate systems, there's no way to maximize efficiency in the warehouse.

We've explored your warehouse challenges thoroughly. Now, it's time for a solution.

A consumer goods-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Particularly one that offers warehouse management functionality to help you how and where you need it during peak season.

This is part one of a two-part series on how to master your warehouse during peak season. In our second blog post, we'll explore how to overcome these challenges and how to manage your warehouse during your peak seasons successfully. All with the right warehouse management functionality built-in. 

We're here to help you get ready for what's next, now.