Stand-Privé.com: 100,000 SKUs and 2,600 online orders a day

Stand-Privé.com: a trendy e-commerce

Founded in 2012 by five young fashion industry entrepreneurs, Stand-Privé.com is a French e-commerce retailer specialising in fashion apparel (clothing and footwear) and accessories. Via its website, customers can purchase the latest fashion trends at a low cost. Customer satisfaction is this company’s top priority, underscoring its commitment to delivering orders within 24-72 hours.

• Founded in: 2012
• Annual turnover: €19 million
• Markets: France, Spain, and Italy

Stand-Privé.com is a tangible example of an e-commerce business in expansion mode. Since the company’s inception, its customer portfolio has not stopped growing. This has caused its daily orders to skyrocket, increasing from 1,300 to 2,600 in a matter of months. How has Stand-Privé.com achieved this meteoric growth? Although several factors came into play, one of them is essential: ensuring efficient, digitised logistics operations.

Previously, the business had a warehouse in the French town of Villetaneuse, but “it was cluttered and too small,” says Julien Wang, Founding Partner of Stand-Privé.com. The company decided to move to a new, larger facility in Aulnay-sous-Bois to increase its stock quantities to up to 100,000 SKUs.

Mecalux has equipped the warehouse with M7 heavy duty shelving, a storage system that streamlines order preparation and is noted for its versatility in adapting to particular product characteristics. This solution spanning three floors — two with raised walkways and one in the form of a mezzanine — has enabled Stand-Privé.com to triple its useful storage area.

In addition to optimising space to boost storage capacity, Stand-Privé.com needed to improve management of its goods and of its warehouse operations to cope with the growth of its business. “In our former warehouse, we managed products manually, which wasn’t very practical,” says Wang. With rising order numbers, goods management became more and more complex in the Stand-Privé.com facility. “Operators had to organise the receiving process, with the arrival of new items and customer returns; on top of that, they needed to prepare a large number of orders and manually notify the transport agencies and customers,” says Wang.

To monitor the goods and optimise all operations, Stand-Privé.com opted to digitise its facility with the Easy WMS warehouse management system from Mecalux. “With the same resources, we’ve ramped up our productivity. Through digitisation, we’ve improved our customer service and satisfaction,” says Wang.

Easy WMS was deployed in the SaaS (software as a service) model, i.e., in the cloud. The warehouse operators are able to access the software from any browser with an internet connection. One of the advantages of this solution is that the data remain securely stored on external servers. Likewise, Easy WMS has been integrated with Stand-Privé.com’s ERP system so that the two software programs can transfer data and information to ensure that warehouse operations run smoothly.

Stand-Privé.com has also implemented two modules that expand Easy WMS’s functionalities: WMS for Ecommerce, designed to shorten order preparation times, and Multi Carrier Shipping Software, which streamlines and simplifies the goods packing and dispatch processes.

Management of all operations

“With the help of Easy WMS, operations in our facility are much more agile, controlled and efficient. The software from Mecalux supervises and optimises all warehouse processes, including goods receipt, product storage and order shipping,” says Wang.

Communication between Easy WMS and the operators is crucial. Via RF scanners, the software sends the operators instructions on how to complete their tasks (e.g., which products to locate and where to find them). By following the program’s instructions step by step, operators are faster and more accurate when preparing orders.

Goods receipt and storage

Every day, the Stand-Privé.com facility receives pallets containing either products sent by suppliers or customer returns. Operators identify each of the items by reading their barcodes with RF scanners.

Easy WMS then verifies that the items received match those previously indicated by the ERP system, making sure nothing is missing. The software avoids errors and possible stock discrepancies.

Once all the products are identified, Easy WMS assigns them a location. To do this, the software incorporates rules and algorithms that take into account the type of item (apparel, footwear or handbags and accessories), its turnover and the season.

Thus, for instance, high-demand products are placed closer to the loading dock zone to streamline their entry and exit. Seasonal products, meanwhile, are housed on the shelving with walkways, and the mezzanine above is reserved for products that are out of season.

Order preparation

Operators follow instructions from Easy WMS when completing orders. The software assigns them a floor in the facility and tells them which products to pick, in what quantity and where to locate them. Easy WMS automatically designs a pick path for each operator and optimises their movements to cut picking times.

Using carts with bins, these workers travel around the warehouse collecting items in line with the order grouping method, whereby several orders are picked along a single run. Once this process is completed, the operators place the bins on conveyors that bring them down to the ground floor of the building, where orders are packaged, labelled and dispatched.

Order packing and shipping

The warehouse has an extensive area for organising products removed from the racks to be packaged and dispatched. The operators charged with performing this task sort the various SKUs into orders as directed by Easy WMS. The Mecalux software helps workers to group the products pertaining to each order, checking that no SKU is missing. “Our priority is to prevent errors and guarantee customer satisfaction. With Easy WMS, operators no longer make mistakes, and we’ve minimised customer returns,” says Wang.

Once the products are sorted, Easy WMS sends the operators instructions on how to package each order and, lastly, creates and prints labels for each one. The orders are grouped by delivery agency so that when the carriers arrive at the warehouse, they only have to pick up the packages and ship them as soon as possible.

E-commerce fashion merchant in flux

E-commerce has boosted the retail and fashion sector. Companies such as Stand-Privé.com have increased the number of orders prepared in their warehouses every day, making it necessary to simplify operations to gain in efficiency. Digitisation has enabled Stand-Privé.com to stand out from the competition: “We’re much speedier, we’ve raised our productivity greatly and we’ve minimised returns due to mistakes and lack of stock,” says Wang.

Implementing warehouse management software such as Easy WMS has not only helped Stand-Privé.com to optimise operations in its facility, but also provided it with more control over its processes. For example, the integration of the WMS with the transport agencies makes information exchange much securer, facilitating and streamlining dispatches. “With digital logistics, we hope to continue expanding our European market. Our priority is to satisfy our customers by delivering the products they’ve purchased via our website as quickly as possible,” says Wang. Easy WMS will support Stand-Privé.com in its future growth plans and help its warehouse operators to be faster and more efficient in carrying out any job.

Our logistics operations were becoming more and more complex, with the growing number of SKUs and orders. With Easy WMS, we can better control all our processes and be much more agile and accurate in order shipments.