Mountain Warehouse, the outdoor goods retailer, is trialling daily deliveries to 20 stores with plans to roll this out to all 145 of its outlets.
Currently, it works on a system of weekly deliveries which are handled by third party logistics provider Torque.
David Scott, head of warehousing & distribution at Torque, says: “This will require us to efficiently roll out a new strategy ensuring a smooth transition, so that the customer remains unaffected. As part of the change to daily deliveries we are also improving our pick operation by implementing cartonisation (picking items to specific cartons), which will allow Mountain Warehouse to positively receive stock into its stores with significant store stock file improvements”.
Mountain Warehouse has been working with Torque since 2006, during which the number of retail stores increased from 40 to 140 in 2011, while web orders are in excess of 500,000 units per annum.
The key services that Torque supplies are retail and e-commerce, picking and distribution, export and import of freight mainly from China, India and Bangladesh and relationship management of partners such as DHL and UK mail.
A Mountain Warehouse spokesman says: “The growth we have seen during this time has been phenomenal with an increase of 3.6 million in retail and 148,000 in e-commerce. Without Torque’s ability to be flexible and adapt to the changing volumes and provide an efficient and thorough service that delivers on all aspects, we would not have been able to build and maintain our customer base and ultimately increase sales.”
