Adore Beauty expands its warehouse operations with Zebra’s mobile computers
Established in 2000 by founder, Kate Morris, Adore Beauty was the first beauty e-commerce site in Australia. Its mission was to make a wide variety of beauty brands accessible to everyone, particularly people living in regional and remote areas. Now with an official stockist of more than 250 global beauty brands and over 13,000 products, Adore Beauty has well and truly expanded its garage-based origins to become a beauty retailing powerhouse.
Challenge
Adore Beauty has enjoyed phenomenal growth over the past five years and has outgrown its premises several times during this period. On average, the company dispatches 6,500 orders daily from its new warehouse in Keilor Park and its staff of 85 is set to expand to 100 in this warehouse by December.
In 2018, its paper-based warehouse solution was stretched to capacity. The surge in customer orders placed an increased amount of pressure on its staff to maintain the same level of speed and accuracy in its picking process. This alone could compromise their renowned customer service reputation and potential for future growth.
Realising that this was no longer sustainable, particularly as it prepared to move operations to a new facility in Northcote Victoria, Adore Beauty reached out to Gamma Solutions. The company needed to source and implement a robust mobile computing solution that is durable and easy to use. Moreover, Adore Beauty needed a solution that would improve warehouse workflows, reduce the manual labour-intensive transactions and move beyond traditional paper-based recording.
Solution
Team culture and satisfaction is an important aspect of Adore Beauty’s continued operational success. Therefore, the experience of its warehouse team in the assessment of its business mobile computing requirements and solution was an important factor that needed to be considered.
Understanding the priority of the staff experience, Gamma Solutions worked extensively with Adore Beauty to design and deploy a robust “point of activity” solution that would satisfy staff workflows and fulfil the company’s supply chain visibility requirements. A focus group made up of the Adore Beauty’s warehouse employees then reviewed a dozen potential options:
“This involved a lot of testing, a lot of trialling to determine the best scanner with the best form factor, the best battery life and the most comfortable device to improve the warehouse workflows and productivity,” said Paul Pleming, National Sales Manager, Gamma Solutions.
The Zebra TC8000 was a clear winner.
Charley Fisk, Adore Beauty’s Warehouse Operations Manager commented, “The Zebra TC8000 was definitely a crowd favourite. Our team loved the touch screen element and its ergonomics. The device is also considerably light eliminating any concerns about damaging the device if dropped. From an operational perspective, we can continue business as usual with no interruptions and importantly the device is scalable to support future growth.”
Adore Beauty had also recently begun using Highjump warehouse management system to enable volumetric calculation of stock and meet sustainability goals.
“The Zebra solution deployed by Gamma Solutions bridged the gap between software and hardware to provide a seamless integration for the new warehouse, so Adore Beauty could go live without any service interruptions,” Paul Pleming, National Sales Manager, Gamma Solutions.
More than 35 Zebra TC8000 units were deployed in August 2018 speeding up inbound functions, while increasing order and stock level accuracies.
Results
Since the introduction of the TC8000 solution, Adore Beauty has seen a 30% increase in productivity across the warehouse operations, a 50% reduction in cost per unit and an accuracy rate of 99.9% for outbound orders. The touch screen keypad means warehouse staff can type up to 40% faster with 60% fewer errors.
Future
While Adore Beauty’s early entry to the online retail industry has allowed them to stay ahead of the curve, the online beauty brand anticipates it will need to continue to evolve and adapt its operations in line with changes in the market and customer expectations. A robust and sustainable technology solution is essential in this plan and Adore will continue to work closely with partners Gamma Solutions and Zebra Technologies on this to secure its future.
Adore Beauty Casestudy- Final Approved Case study pdf
