Autumn 2009

Fulfilment house GSI Commerce has increased the floor space in its warehouse facility at Chadderton in the North West by around 25 per cent, and is more than doubling the capacity of its contact centre there.

Iain Beveridge, vice president of international operations, told F&E: 'Our American parent is pumping in new investment, especially in fulfilment activities and customer service.' He says the investment has been prompted both by organic growth and by the need to accommodate new clients.

The news underlines the point that GSI remains committed to physical fulfilment and all that goes with it. When the group acquired Zendor from catalogue business N Brown around two years ago, emphasis was placed on the technology side of the parent company's activities, but it is clear from current developments that it also recognises the full-service capabilities of the UK operation.

Beveridge told F&E the company had increased floor space by 45,000 sq ft through the addition of a second mezzanine layer, having already added an earlier mezzanine. Powered conveyors provide links between levels. It now has a capacity of 215,000 sq ft.

 

'A lot of the extra capacity is processing space,' he says, 'especially for outgoing goods.' There is also a greater range of stock location sizes. 'We've aimed to become more flexible and cube-efficient,' he explains.

The company has also introduced voice-directed picking. Beveridge says the company considered hand- or wrist-mounted scanners, but decided voice made practical and financial sense, 'and the training process is shorter.' Pick accuracy is the key, he says. Voice picking is being rolled out gradually on various client operations. About half of the new business added this year is on voice.

Meanwhile, the contact centre capacity is being increased from 48 to 100 seats, and Nordic language capability is being added. Already GSI supports Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish as well as English, and the company is known to be keen to develop its cross-border fulfilment activities.

The added capacity will allow GSI to deal with more customer enquiries by phone and also email, as well as increasing the cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. 'We had to outsource some calls during last year's peak,' Beveridge says. 'It makes sense to bring this work in-house if we can.'