What does your company do?
Delamode UK is part of the Delamode Group. We are a European group of companies’ delivering end to end logistics and supply chain management solutions. Our areas of expertise include warehousing and logistics, ecommerce fulfilment, fashion logistics, full and part load transport, and sea and air freight.
Delamode UK provides fully integrated logistics and fulfilment solutions for the B2B, B2C, fashion and e-commerce sectors. We’ve created dedicated mezzanine fulfilment areas in our Essex facility, which is able to handle fully optimised pick-and-pack operations and the returns management for clients that require a smart and customer-focused fulfilment solution. By investing in our people and understanding our clients’ challenges we have been able to develop fulfilment solutions that offer service excellence in every stage of the fulfilment process, including quality checks, picking speed and accuracy, despatch management and a seamless returns management processes.
What is your USP?
Tailored approach: Our profound expertise in smart ecommerce processes and IT systems, combined with our deep market understanding and committed people, makes us capable of delivering customer satisfaction and enhanced service experience.
Flexibility: Our flexible approach means we are very successful in supporting customers of all sizes with their innovative business strategies and growth objectives. We take pride in being right at our customers’ side when going through a successful change.
Philosophy of delivery enhanced customer satisfaction: We can offer expertise in smart ecommerce processes and IT systems, thanks to our deep market understanding and team of committed people.
What is your core service offering, and what new services have you most recently brought to market?
We offer a complete range of pick and pack services, including 100% quality checks on intake of products. Other services include systems integration, returns management, dedicated account management, despatch management and bespoke KPI reporting.
Which companies do you work with?
We work with a range of companies from fashion retailers, home furnishing brands to printer cartridge suppliers.
How would you describe your vision?
To be successful in the expanding ecommerce environment will require a high degree of customer requirement understanding. As ecommerce evolves our vision is to evolve within this market and enhance our expertise, technology and adaptability to meet shifting consumer demands.
How would you describe your growth, what have been the main points in your expansion and what has been key to your success?
Delamode is growing with its customers as well as through new customer acquisitions. Efulfilment is an area of growth and remains our continued focus. Apart from our advanced systems and process design which are prerequisites to retaining any business, probably the most important ingredient remains the commitment to excellence that is found in every member of our staff from GM to picking operator.
What do you do to differentiate yourselves in the market?
We take a flexible approach offering tailored solutions to meet and exceed exact requirements of a customer. We also offer clients a unique service guarantee that all customer orders are delivered to the customer in correct and pristine condition. On the rare occasion that a defective product is received by a customer, we promise to refund the cost value of the product, including the incurred shipping costs.
Where are the main challenges and opportunities in the ecommerce delivery space?
Speed and accuracy are the main attributes of commerce nowadays. The customer is well informed and very demanding. Packing for an outstanding presentation and despatching on time combined with track and trace to offer visibility during the last mile are both challenges and opportunities for differentiation. The return experience is also an area where customer loyalty is won over.
What do you see as challenges for the retail industry over the coming year?
Fulfilment activities for brick and mortar operations are substantially different from ecommerce fulfilment and as such, while they cannot be combined, retailers need to find efficient solutions for both.
What do you see as the challenges for carriers and logistics businesses?
Simply providing just one part of the supply chain will no longer be enough. Logistics providers need to find ways to cooperate between themselves within the supply chain of their customer so that there is a seamless continuation in service despite having various providers covering distinct elements of the supply chain journey.
How are you prepared to meet those challenges?
Delamode continues to invest in the future of its people and in modern software suites that would support multi-site, multi-client transactions. Motivated and trained people using the right tools and instruments make for a winning formula.
What are your future plans?
We have plans to open strategically placed warehouses in the UK. The aim of this is to position our customers to key sorting hubs to enable later delivery cut off times. E-fulfilment is a key focus across our industry and a significant part of everything we now do. As always we look to play to our strengths and this year we launched EshopWedrop which was created to help consumers in Eastern Europe shop online from Western European e-tailers. Since Delamode is already delivering significant shipment volumes into Eastern Europe, it has been relatively straight forward to accommodate B2C deliveries alongside B2B groupage services.
EshopWedrop is a drop box business for B2C customers outside of the UK to save money on European delivery. For example, a customer can purchase a product from a UK online retailer using our warehouse as a delivery address. We will then ship it on our frequently departing B2B groupage trailers to the consumer’s country, where they can collect their products or have them delivered at their home address. Launching primarily in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Romania, with options to buy in the UK, Germany, Poland and Italy, we are looking to expand this offering across Europe and Africa.
Case Study: Luxury International Furniture Brand
The company made a decision to outsource its ecommerce fulfilment to Delamode in 2013. A decision based on a number of factors, including our track record servicing customers in this sector and our large bespoke facility that can cater for their current needs and expected growth over the coming years.
The customer wanted the resource and capacity to focus on delivering the businesses strategic vision, resulting in exponential growth over the next five years.
As part of the implementation, Delamode constructed dedicated mezzanine floors for the fulfilment operation:
• shelving layouts designed to optimise the picking process
• The process is fully mapped out on our stock management system, ensuring the picking process follows the most efficient route.
The result – Outsourcing has not only helped the customer improve the efficiency of the fulfilment operation, but has also seen a healthy improvement in their customer satisfaction.
Our customer also benefits from a linear cost base model – offering flexibility with the capacity for growth without commitment for high fixed costs and new premises.
• Goods in flow improved, goods are now located straight on the shelves.
• Clear communications to the team through briefings and visual management.
• Client meetings in place with clear defined actions and improvement process.
• System developments scoped and discussed with the customer.
• 100% dispatch on time.
Delamode has implemented a bespoke stationery printing solution. This allows for documents to be batch-produced dynamically, in-line with the pick-and pack operation, scanned and sent out with the product presented exactly to the exact specification, which is accompanied with the customer web orders. Every document is personalised to the end-customer and in a language of their choice.
DELAMODE IN BRIEF
Date launched: 1988
Global reach – office locations: 10 European offices
Date launched in the UK: 1988
Turnover: €69m Delamode Group turnover (2015)
Number of employees: 424 (Delamode Group)
Contact details: Tel: +44(0)1376 333000
Email: info@delamode-group.com
Website: www.delamode-group.com • www.delamode-uk.com
