Industry Challenges for Fashion and Apparel Warehouse

Industry challenges
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SKU & Storage Complexity - Fashion industry is growing at a high-rate and their warehouses struggle to fulfill the demand due to fast moving, multi-SKU storage complexities, further resulting into higher operational costs.
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Real-time Traceability - During peak season demands - seamless inventory tracking for stocks is critical to prevent over-selling. This is a major challenge to facilitate omnichannel operations across online and offline stores and may result in lost sales and poor customer experience.
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SKU Segregation - Garments must be organized by gender, size, season and style for quicker delivery with fewer errors, to ensure store ready packaging. Different materials like wool, cotton and nylon, etc. require specific climate controls and constantly shifting demands complicate storage and handling.
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Fast fashion Complexity - Growing demand of Fast Fashion, by young, trend conscious consumers have created micro-seasons with short timelines. Brands are changing to D2C model to increase agility and reduce production time from months to weeks to stay competitive.
Industry challenges
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Time-sensitive deliveries - Same-day and next-day delivery demands make fashion warehouses highly time-sensitive, as it requires rapid inbound and outbound processing. Batch picking and apparel kitting further adds complexity to timely order fulfilment.
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Return & Recycling Risks - Fashion warehouses face higher return rates, with around 30% of orders returned as per the latest reports. Mishandling during inspection, manual sorting or re-packaging can delay reintegration into stock, impact quality and slowdown fulfilment.
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Inflexible production - Manual storage, sortation and picking operations can slow down order fulfilment as warehouses must cater to fluctuation of demands by increasing or trimming to keep their optimal operational expenditures and maintain necessary inventory storage levels.

Automation Solutions for Fashion and Apparel Industry

Fixed and Flexible

Sortation

Automated Storage

Picking

Tracking Software

Returns Management

Our expertise in fixed and flexible automation solutions like Stacker crane ASRS, 4-way pallet shuttle, sortation robots, autonomous forklifts and AMRs help us provide a balanced approach that fits your requirements.

Our Sortation robots enable apparel warehouses to accurately handle multi-SKU orders through batch picking, consolidate delivery to multiple last mile delivery providers, facilitate order consolidation, and streamline return handling all while ensuring accuracy, speed and throughput.

Addverb’s Shuttle ASRS, Medius, along with vertical lifts, maximizes vertical storage and handles high SKU volumes efficiently. Our Carton Shuttles enhance material handling by buffering and sequencing totes and by moving slow and fast SKUs efficiently.

Addverb’s GTP stations combined with Carton Shuttles, along with ergonomic layouts, optimise picking across multiple floors and improves throughput. They handle garments by type, season and style, and dispatch it as per different omnichannel requirements and classifications for faster and accurate fulfilment.

With the help of RFID/Barcode scanning on manufacturing and outbound lines, Addverb’s Concinity provides real-time stock visibility across omni-channels, preventing inventory over-selling or stockouts. It manages high SKU proliferation and enables seamless supplier integration and process tracking.

Addverb’s Robotic Sorter, Zippy with Quadron and conveyor streamlines reverse logistics by handling high return volumes efficiently to prevent delays in reintegration. Our Dynamo supports seamless transport across zones, ensuring uninterrupted flow, safe handling of fragile apparel and faster replenishment during peak sales.

Solutions Finder

Your biggest challenge?
Wide customer choices leading up to huge variety of SKUs
High return rate resulting in additional steps
Omnichannel distribution from the same warehouse
Shorter delivery requirements with low order sizes
High Demand Variability with obsolete inventory pile-up

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Why Choose Addverb?

Empowering Industries with Automation

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Products for Fashion and Apparel Warehouse Automation

Our extensive product portfolio helps us design innovative warehouse automation solutions

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Frequently Asked Questions

  • 1. What factors determine the cost of automating a fashion and apparel warehouse?

    The cost depends on warehouse size, SKU variety, order volumes, and fulfillment model (B2B, B2C, or omni-channel). Since fashion operations involve fast-moving SKUs, frequent launches, and fluctuating demand, Addverb designs automation solutions customised to your workflows. For an exact cost estimate, please get in touch with our experts.

  • 2. What is the timeline for deploying automation in a clothing warehouse?

    Deployment timeframes differ according to your warehouse design, the intensity of orders, and the requirements to connect to your WMS / OMS. Modular deployments such robotic sortation software, multi-level shuttle ASRS, and AMR for batch picking deploy in phases in a matter of months, you won't experience any interruptions in service while implementing new systems.

  • 3. Can Addverb automation manage fragile clothing, accessories, and high variety SKU?

    Yes. Addverb's robotic picking systems, gentle conveyor technology, and intelligent sortation capabilities can accommodate folded clothing, shoes and accessories, items that come in multiple sizes and SKU's. Our ASRS and AMR solutions can pick fast moving and long-tail SKU's with high accuracy and minimal touch points.

  • 4. How do fashion warehouses handle the peak seasons and operational surges from launches?

    Addverb's scalable AMR fleet, batch picking technology, and shuttle systems will help you ramp up throughput during peak seasons and launches new collections. Intelligent order batching and dynamic replenishment will allowed expedited processing for high bulk retailer orders and high volume eCommerce parcels.