Amber Falcon, Neighbor

This year I have been working with a variety of different companies. These companies all have come into the market of e-commerce very recently. This is because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 be as much as 70 less. 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 some times a simple box is a way to do it. Now it is much more than just a box, but knowing how to get those boxes and how to implement them into your changing company can make a huge difference.

I am part of a marketing company that helps these companies and anyway we can help we do. 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. One solution to do ing this is creating their warehouse from simple materials.

I have worked at a billion-dollar corporation that had warehouses build from cheap metal and plywood shelves and only filled with cardboard boxes for a storage system. They had a 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 shelvings 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 to organize for a low price. It has really been a big boom for these companies.

Another idea has been what one of our clients did and that was to take half of their showroom floor and turn it into a warehouse. 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. The innovation has been amazing and seeing these companies thrive makes us happy. I hope these tips help!