Store warehouse

It is very clear that if business needs to flourish in a retail store the retailer needs to make sure that the right type of product is available at the right time to a customer. In order to make this successful the retailer needs to make sure that his supply chain management, which ensures continuous supply of goods from suppliers, manufacturers and vendors is efficient enough, his logistics team, which controls and manages the material movements from the manufacturer or supplier to the warehouse and store is in place, and has got a well managed warehouse in place with an efficient process in place to ensure that products reach the store in time to the customers.

During my tenure at the west zone operations team at Future Group I had to visit couple of Big Bazaar stores to understand the performance of the stores. I make it a point to visit the back office and the store warehouse on every visit of mine to a store as this will give you a clear picture as to whether the store manager is doing his job or not. At one such visit I noticed that the warehouse was in a complete mess. Stocks were dumped in such a manner as if they were garbage. The pile was so huge that the wall at the other extreme end the floor of the warehouse was not at all visible. It was a total mess. No one had any idea as to what stocks were there and as to from when it is lying in the warehouse. When we decided to clear off the stock we noticed that most of the stocks had not been taken to the floor, most of them were damaged, and many were in excess quantity and were required in other stores. It took us four days and three nights to segregate and clear the stocks and to outward all the excess and non required stocks back to the city warehouse. The total value of stocks inside this small warehouse was worth ten thousands of dollars. The reason for the mess was there was no proper planning as to how to manage the warehouse. There was no proper area demarcated to inward and outward goods. The bins were not properly marked and stocks coming in were not properly placed at the required sections. All stocks coming in used to be just dumped and gradually it used to pile up. Also stocks were not taken to the floor regularly as the staffs used to find it difficult to enter the warehouse due to the pile created, one of the reasons for the pile to generate. Even if someone wanted the stocks they had to climb the pile to get, and in the process damage most of the stocks. Gradually the entire warehouse had been so clustered with merchandise that those that were piled below the ones coming in lately had got either damaged or not in a condition to sell. It obviously showcased the efficiency of the manager. To avoid such a scenario it is very important to keep a warehouse neat, all merchandise neatly stacked or binned to avoid damages and shrinkage. At no given time the stocks should be lying in the warehouse for a longer period as it involves cost and hence blocks the flow of money.
The warehouse team is responsible for in-warding and out-warding of goods, storing of goods and maintaining the same within the store. It’s very essential to maintain the warehouse very systematically for smooth operations of flow of merchandise from the warehouse to shop floor and vice versa.
How do you make sure of this? My experience ( I was personally involved in setting up the Marks & Spencer warehouse in Navi Mumbai) says at the initial stage during store opening period itself the warehouse team should prepare a layout along with the planogram of the warehouse. At the site as per the planogram they should de-marcate the area properly so as different area is allocated at the bay to receive goods and send goods. Separate fixtures with slotted angles are preffered to stack and hang the goods in shelves or bins. Depending on the size of the warehouse the department and sections need to be marked accordingly. Once the sections are identified the slotted angle bins are fixed. Partitions are then created in the slotted angle bins and then depending on the merchandise they are either hanged or stacked. The placement is again department wise, product wise, style wise, colour wise and size wise. This has to be done in this order so as then it becomes very easy and convenient for any individual to identify and do the picking of merchandise very easily. All the partitions need to be also labelled accordingly. For instance if it’s an apparel store the warehouse has to mark areas for men’s wear, ladies wear, and kids wear separately. Further menswear should be segregated into casual wear, formal wear and so on. These should be again segregated to top wear and bottom wear.
All stocks placed in cartons should be labelled on the box. The label should indicate the product description, style code, colour code, size wise quantity, and in-ward date. Once these basic points are taken care of it becomes very easy for the warehouse team to place stocks whenever they arrive at the warehouse in a very systematic and orderly manner.