Overview
A consistent theme in our annual Peak Season survey is that the pattern of peak season has shifted toward a year-round event. Perimeter Global Logistics (PGL), an Atlanta, GA-based 3PL provider of intelligent supply chain solutions to virtually all key industry sectors, found the secret to simplifying this for clients – Invest in a WMS platform that can flex and grow with intense swings in demand and complexity of needs.
Their customer, Spirit Halloween is the largest Halloween retailer in North America with over 1,450 pop-up locations in strip centers and malls. Celebrating nearly four decades of business, Spirit Halloween has cemented its position as the premier destination for all things Halloween.
They run massive, pop-up stores once a year for about 2-3 months around Halloween. Stores open as early as July, marking the highly anticipated start of the Halloween season. Die-hard Halloween enthusiasts ready to celebrate around the clock can visit Spirit’s online store, available year-round.
There are exciting challenges to overcome for seasonal pop-up stores like Spirit, where 70%+ of your business is reliably tied to a tight window of perfect execution. Working closely with the Spirit Halloween team, Deposco and PGL partnered to create a fully customized solution that uncovered new levels of efficiency in complex processes, and next-level visibility into inventory and warehouse management.
It takes tremendous work to get a season’s well-organized inventory into each retail location on time and precisely. As with any complex receiving, warehouse management, and outbound operation, perfection is found in preparation.
Engineering the processes involves identifying and implementing the WMS software and hardware that makes it all possible. In this case, this included integrating Spirit Halloween’s preferred barcode scanning platform, Zebra, with Deposco’s 3PL WMS solution. The two critical components working in harmony allowed PGL to follow best practices while remaining agile and able to change processes and functions as the customer needs.
The Deposco WMS was installed to handle warehouse inventory with the customer’s preferred scanning system, Zebra, creating a workflow that maximizes the effectiveness and visibility provided by these two disparate systems. PGL was able to install fully customized full scope solutions that bring order and efficiency to the seasonal retail giant’s annual efforts to be the one stop shop for Halloween fun.
Solution
Along with this flexibility, Deposco gave PGL the visibility needed to identify potential issues well in advance and make adjustments before they become problems.
For each location, a pick-sheet is sent to the warehouse, indicating which pallets need to be pulled for the next truck. Each pallet label is scanned and a warehouse crew of three people breaks down the pallets and loads the truck from floor to ceiling.
This process takes about 2.5 hours to fill the truck. Driver information is gathered and a Bill of Lading is generated. The doors are sealed, and the truck is sent on its way.
Thankfully, with each location’s inventory pre-sorted and ready to roll out, this monumental task was not only possible, but brought a new level of confidence to proceedings, allowing each store to set up well in advance.
