The European leader in online sales to the general public, vente-privee, increases the efficiency of its Rhône-Alpes (France) distribution centre

About vente-privee: its needs

vente-privee is a French e-commerce company with a broad selection of brand name products in fashion, toys, watches, decor and household items, technology, recreation, cuisine, etc. Founded in 2001, it currently has more than 30 million users throughout Europe and the U.S.

The enterprise started out with a warehouse equipped with pallet racks, mainly used to prepare online orders. However, in last few years it was forced to enlarge storage capacity to deal with business growth and the expansion resulting from its highly successful flash sales offers: special promotions with time-limited discounts until stock runs out. This type of marketing involves a huge challenge from a logistics point of view and requires an excellent organisation to guarantee the desired service.

To this effect, and in order to restructure all the operations of the distribution centre, vente-privee turned to Mecalux for advice.

The solution by Mecalux

Mecalux installed two blocks of high-density racks served by Pallet Shuttles.

The two blocks, measuring 23.5 m long with four-levels that reach 10 m in height, manage the goods in various ways depending on the logistics needs of vente-privee:

• One block with a single access aisle where the LIFO (last in, first out) criterion is applied, i.e., the first pallet in is the last one out. Reserve consumer goods are housed here.
• One block that follows the FIFO (first in, first out) criterion for palletised consumer goods. It features a loading aisle and another for unloading to avoid interference between the two operations.

To function, the operators place the motorised shuttle into the corresponding channel, they deposit pallets into the first position of the racks and the Pallet Shuttle transfers them to the first open location. The same operation is performed in reverse order to remove the goods.

Control tablet
The installation is equipped with control tablets which are tasked with sending orders to all the Pallet Shuttles of the warehouse according to prioritised protocols.

Operators, via the tablet, can select the shuttle they are going to work with, how many pallets must be inserted or extracted, manage authorised personnel or automatically take inventory.

The number of shuttles that the tablet controls can be expanded with the growing needs of the warehouse.

Advantages for vente-privee

• Top throughput: the Pallet Shuttle system guarantees maximum speed and safety in goods management, minimising operator manoeuvres.
• Space optimisation: the racks make full use of the available space to achieve a storage capacity of more than 1,200 pallets.
• Dynamic operations: the optimal organisation of the warehouse operations results in the faster picking of online orders.