Kendra Scott closed all of its 108 retail locations, which led to a strain on its Austin-based fulfillment center, with social distancing orders mandating that employees stay six feet apart. Beginning in mid-March, the fulfillment team went from having 30 people in the building at any given time to no more than 10 people, and usually less than 10.
At that point, the Kendra Scott team started rerouting orders and inventory to a third-party distribution center (3PL) in order to keep up with customer orders. The company declined to share specifics on current order volume. The company also worked with supply chain solutions company Manhattan Associates to turn those 108 retail locations into mini fulfillment centers.
“Leveraging stores as fulfillment centers is not a new concept, however it’s still a major challenge for retailers. Traditional point-of-sale systems are clunky and difficult to use, and historically, they haven’t been connected to order management systems. This makes it extremely time consuming for stores to be leveraged for fulfillment. Legacy systems simply were not designed for omnichannel,” said Casey Antonelli, senior director of corporate communications at NewStore.
