The annual shopping frenzy around Black Friday is approaching. It’s time to prepare your warehouse for this peak moment. The period around Black Friday is incredibly important for your annual revenue. Black Friday can make or break your year. You or your marketing team have likely been working for months to prepare various campaigns. All well and good, but the warehouse needs to be ready to handle the shopping madness. It’s no easy task! During the holiday season, sales are spread out over a longer period, while the number of packages during Black Friday experiences a sudden spike. It’s crucial to prepare for this peak to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Why should you prepare a peak moment in detail?
A peak moment can give a real boost to your business. Imagine the marketing department has developed some exciting and high-converting campaigns, and sales numbers are skyrocketing. Your warehouse must be able to handle a sudden increase in orders. Picture launching a brilliant campaign, but your stock runs out almost immediately. Or you promise a 24-hour delivery but it ends up taking 5 days. You can expect negative reviews. It’s only natural because you’re not keeping your promises. A detailed preparation will help you avoid such situations and ensure that you can deliver all packages completely and on time. This will lead to positive reviews, and satisfied customers are the best advertising there is!
A WMS system helps you during Black Friday
If you’re not using a WMS system yet, it’s high time to invest in one. A WMS system will guide you efficiently through peak moments like Black Friday. During the peak, the system ensures logical picking routes in the warehouse, so you’re not running back and forth unnecessarily. This means warehouse staff will travel less distance and process more orders in the same amount of time!
A WMS system isn’t only useful during peak moments. It also proves its value in the lead-up to a peak. Since you track all data digitally, you can check stock levels quickly. You don’t need to manually check the entire stock in the warehouse. A smart, modern inventory system will even alert you when the minimum stock level is reached. Planning a campaign focused on a product or a few products? Be sure to check the stock level of those items and reorder if needed.
Link warehouse resources to the WMS system
With an inventory system like Webship Online, you can link warehouse resources. This means you can track which materials are used to process each order. Very useful! But to prepare for a peak, it’s even more important to keep track of the stock of these warehouse resources. Check the stock levels and reorder if necessary. Always ensure you have enough materials to process orders with the most suitable resources. For example, if you’re selling a small product and notice that the small boxes are running low, this could have detrimental effects. A small product in a box that’s too large increases the risk of damage!
Black Friday and warehouse locations
Black Friday and warehouse locations have more in common than you might think! When you run campaigns around specific products, those products will likely sell better than others. A modern WMS system like Webship Online links products to warehouse locations. This way, you’ll always know where your products are in the warehouse. During a peak like Black Friday, it’s important to process as many orders as possible. Therefore, you should ensure that popular products are stored near the packing stations. If the WMS system uses warehouse locations, you can easily transfer products from one location to another. During this process, you’ll always know where the products are! This is crucial because it will not only save you from walking unnecessary distances but also save time by not having to search for products.
Ensure enough packing stations
When you need to process more orders, it’s likely that you’ll need extra manpower. Of course, you also need to equip the additional workers with the proper tools. As an entrepreneur, you must ensure that there are enough packing stations in the warehouse. We always recommend having more packing stations than there are regular packers. Additionally, the extra packing stations should be equipped with the necessary hardware, such as a computer, printer, scale, and label printer. Important! Otherwise, packers will get in each other’s way.
The WMS system should be accessible on every computer. This comes with some costs… unless you work with a cloud-based inventory system! A simple and affordable solution because with a cloud-based WMS system, you can access it anytime, anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. And let’s face it, these days everyone has an internet connection at all times.
Would you like to test a cloud-based WMS system for free? Contact Webship Online at hallo@webship.online.
