Logistics boosts cross-channel retail

Regardless of how a customer buys a product – online or over the counter, B2B or B2C – they always expect a fast and customised service. This applies equally to private and business customers. It is important for the retail company to have a partner with a sophisticated logistics concept and the ability to combine different inbound and distribution channels so that the customer is supplied quickly, safely and at the lowest possible cost. One tried-and-tested method is via a central warehouse that is fully stocked with all items.

One such (central) hub is the Schäflein Distribution Centre in Röthlein near Schweinfurt. This is where the products are stored, picked, packed and delivered: large, heavy goods on pallets by lorry or – at the other extreme, so to speak – a small consignment by parcel service. The fast and perfect functioning is based on cross-channel logistics. The different order channels are sensibly linked here. As both the suppliers of the goods and their recipients are located somewhere in Germany or Europe, the key point in Röthlein is always geographically “central”.

The rapid growth of distance selling has led to a significant shift from offline to online channels in consumer goods retail. As a result, conventional bricks-and-mortar retailers and many consumer goods manufacturers have also developed corresponding online formats. This fact in itself may not come as a surprise, but how do you manage to realise this growth and “bring it to the street”?

Concentration on core expertise

While the retail company concentrates on its products and the various order channels, Schäflein as a logistics service provider takes over the subsequent part of the business in outsourcing. With its infrastructure, i.e. its experts, its warehouse technology and its transport network, Schäflein ensures the optimum logistical handling of online and offline channels and combines them, or to put it simply: what benefits Schäflein also benefits its customers. Ordered goods must reach the customer quickly and at optimum cost. This applies not only to parcelled goods, but also to palletised goods, which are more sensitive to transit times. The dispatch warehouses are just a stone’s throw away from the freight forwarder’s handling terminal and are directly connected to the CargoLine network and therefore to the world’s most important trading centres. “The close proximity of warehouse and transport gives our customers a decisive competitive advantage: very late cut-off times. In other words, we enable very long order windows for customer orders,” explains Achim Schäflein, CEO of Schäflein AG. A concrete example from Schäflein’s day-to-day operations: if goods are ordered by 6 p.m., they are dispatched on the same day – and delivered before 8 a.m. the next day. That’s what logistics can do today.

Brief insight

From Röthlein, we dispatch goods throughout Germany, Europe and the whole world 🌎. Peggy Scharoba from #TeamSchäflein, contact person for contract logistics and dispatch fulfilment, explains more. (only available in German)