Get Your Warehouse in Shape for Black Friday: All the Tips and Tricks you need

5 Tips to Get Your Warehouse in Shape for Black Friday

And now, let’s get right down to the tips you need to make sure that you are well-prepared for the Black Friday season! 

1) Assess your warehouse layout.

When it comes to warehouse management, all good things start with an assessment. When you are preparing your warehouse for the peak season, this becomes even more important. You must understand the starting position of your warehouse, so that you can make changes that support your operations for Black Friday. 

It will take some time to do this. Ideally, you should begin by examining your warehouse. Take a look at all the areas within the complex and see if the design as well as the organisation of all the assets is well-aligned with your goals of being productive and efficient for Black Friday. You can do this by analysing whether or not the layout can take an increase in inventory.

This brings us to the second part: you need to ask yourself whether your inventory placement needs to be changed. Can it handle the stock you get during peak season? Is it easily accessible? Can it be conveniently navigated by pickers? If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then your inventory and storage is in the right shape for Black Friday. 

And at the end, just make sure that there is enough and adequate space for walkthroughs. No matter how crowded your warehouse is with your stock, there should always be pathways that make it possible for your team to do their job with easy flow and movement. 

2) Gauge how much inventory you will need.

Look, we hate calculations, numericals, and guesswork as much as the next person, but it plays a huge part in preparing your warehouse for Black Friday. This is because in order to ensure that your warehouse operations can accommodate the predicted influx of orders, you need to have an idea of exactly how much stock you are going to need. This is because having an idea of the stock will allow you to free up an adequate amount of space. 

So, where do you begin when it comes to this? 

Start collaborating with your team! You can get some wonderful insights from your sales and marketing teams, which will give you an idea (or even accurate figures) on how much stock you will be dealing with. You can then start optimising your warehouse plan in accordance with this information and any relevant projections. Once you have a better overview of inventory levels, it becomes easier to make decisions that will improve the way your warehouse runs during peak season. 

3) Make necessary changes for storage capacity.

Once you have more information on storage capacity, you can start making space to better accommodate your stock for Black Friday. During this process, it is important to take into account the whole process. Each step within the process i.e. receiving, storing, picking, packing, and shipping out the products should be paid attention to, and your storage space should be optimised in regards to that. 

This is actually quite an important step, mainly because it is not uncommon for warehouses to run out of storage during the holiday season, especially as soon as Black Friday rolls around. Needless to say, if you run out of storage, you are essentially inviting chaos and trust us, that is the one thing you don’t want to entertain during peak times of the year! 

So, to make sure you aren’t succumbing to that fate, you have to go the extra mile to utilise each square inch within your compound. Some ways to ensure that this happens include using containers to compactly store unpackaged items and consolidating palettes to free up space as well as minimising the width of the aisles.

4) Repair faulty equipment and service the rest.

The last thing you want is for your equipment to give up on you during Black Friday sales. So, if you are planning to eradicate the risk of your equipment giving out on you during peak season, the best option is to run a maintenance check and repair any faulty equipment you may come across at least a month or two beforehand. 

In fact, a good thing might be to service all your equipment before Black Friday rolls around. This way, you can ensure that your equipment works seamlessly and can help you achieve the results that you are looking for. 

5) Use the right technology.

Unless you rely on the right technology, you cannot possibly expect to get your warehouse in shape for Black Friday. Gone are the days when you could set up manual processes and get the optimal results. The nature of commerce, warehousing, and fulfilment in today’s day and age requires you to employ the best of technology that can help you not only streamline and simplify, but also enhance your processes to a considerable extent. 

With the right technology, you add automation to your business which makes it possible for you to optimise your warehouse space perfectly in accordance with the needs of Black Friday. For example, Canary7’s warehouse management system can help you improve your warehouse management processes from start to finish and bring unparalleled efficiency and effectiveness to your business – just in time for the holiday season.