Change your viewpoint with boxes

Ecommerce is now the king of the industry.  It is what most people are getting into because that is how we are now all shopping.  The sad truth is that most of these stores were brick-and-mortar companies that have had to pivot to stay alive.  The regulations of their state have forced foot traffic to their stores to behalf at the very best and none at the worst.  In many cases, they have had to close off their main store and are only allowed to work online.  That means that they have shifted the way that they work. What they have found is that there are small ways to make big savings and sometimes a simple box is a way to do it. Now it is much more than just a box, it is the process of shopping and negotiating for the best price that can end up saving tons of money and crushing the competition.

My company works for eCommerce companies and if we can help in any way we will. Sometimes our experience in past jobs has been a big help to these companies and we are giving tips left and right to keep them on track. One area that seems to be an issue is the transition to e-commerce from a shipping perspective.  These companies need to not only have a presence online but from the warehouse, they need to be able to store more products and not spend money doing it.  Cutting down on warehouse costs is huge and can have massive impacts.

Huge companies like target use super-crappy backends.  Ya, their employees suffer, but it is cheap.  Most use a simple ABC numbering system and that was it.  They organized billions of dollars of goods that way and it was the most financially responsible way for them to do it.  I have worked at smaller companies that spent tons of money on expensive shelving systems that did the exact same thing but only were less flexible as the cardboard box system.  So this has been our advice to companies.  If they are expanding a warehouse to use this cheap system in order to cut down on costs and put that money where it matters.  It has been a big help and we have led them to packaging supplies companies that can fulfill those box orders and get the bins for the shelves organize for a low price. This has changed the world for some of these companies.

Some people cut their salesroom down.  They turned the trafficked floor into a warehouse section. They blocked off the area with a temporary wall which was something they did not even have to get a permit for in their location and then they made shelving and started to store more.  They had lost all their foot traffic so it was not a loss to sales only again on the back end.  Yet again, they used packaging supplies stores to fill the shelves with organizational bins and boxes and they were off and running. Innovation is key and doing what it takes to win is the answer. So find what works best for your company and go out there and crush it.  If you have to benchmark to survive then do it and learn fast! It is worth it to still have employees!