Sofas in bubble wrap with names on them
Walk round your warehouse and you will find them: sofas, beds and wardrobes wrapped and labelled with a customer's name, waiting. Some are waiting for the rest of the order. Some are waiting for the balance. Some belong to customers who are having building work done and asked you to hold on to them. One has been there since last year. Nobody is quite sure why.
Meanwhile, new stock is arriving, and the warehouse team is stacking it in the aisles because the bays are full of goods that have already been sold.
Why customer goods pile up
- Nobody tracks how long each customer's goods have been in the warehouse.
- Customers delaying delivery are agreed by phone and not recorded.
- Storage terms, if you have them, are not applied consistently.
- Bay locations for customer goods are not recorded, so things are hard to find.
- There is no report of the space tied up in waiting orders.
What the waiting stock costs
| Problem | Cost |
|---|---|
| Bays full of sold goods | No room for new stock |
| Goods hard to find | Time lost and wrong items loaded |
| Long waits | Damage in storage and disputes about it |
| Inconsistent storage terms | Some customers charged, others not |
| No visibility | Warehouse expansion considered when the space is full of sold goods |
How we get waiting goods moving
- Each customer order's goods are recorded in a bay location when they arrive, with the date. Moves between bays are scanned.
- Each order carries a reason for waiting: rest of order due, balance due, customer delayed with a date, or waiting for booking.
- Customers whose goods are complete and paid get messages to book, and reminders on a schedule you set.
- When a customer asks to delay, the new date is recorded with the reason, and a reminder goes out before that date.
- If your terms include storage charges after a certain time, the system flags orders reaching that point, sends the notice you have written and adds the charge only when a person approves it.
- A warehouse view shows customer goods by age and reason, with the bays they take up, so you can see what is filling the space.
The warehouse on a Monday afterwards
The warehouse manager opens the view. Most customer goods have been in less than a couple of weeks and have a booked delivery. A handful are older. Two are waiting for the rest of the order, which is due next week. Three are customers who have not booked despite reminders, and they go to the office for a call. One has a delay agreed until the customer's kitchen is finished, with a reminder set. The one that has been there since last year is finally found, in bay 14, and its customer is contacted.
Being fair to customers
Many customers have good reasons to delay: building work, a house move, an illness. The system does not treat them all the same. It records the reason, and your team decides how to handle each one. Storage charges, if you use them, must follow your terms of sale, and whether and how to apply them is your decision with your advisers. The system makes sure the rule is applied consistently and nothing is charged without approval.
Finding goods matters just as much as moving them. When every customer order has a scanned bay location, the crew loading the van picks the right sofa first time, and nobody spends the morning unwrapping bubble wrap to read labels.
Signs your warehouse needs this
- Sold customer goods take up bays you need for stock.
- You cannot say how long each order has been waiting.
- Delivery delays are agreed by phone without a record.
- Customer goods are hard to find in the warehouse.
- Storage terms are applied to some customers and not others.