Gorjana · Supply chain
Backward from opening day
I owned the operations side of opening eight new stores.
- 8
- New stores opened
- 5 days
- To open a store, with everything staged
- 123
- Stores to keep stocked in the meantime
The problem
The hard part was the timelines. Some weeks, more than one store opened. So the warehouse team had to work backward from each opening date, across logistics, fixture planning, kitting, and space planning, and have everything for that store staged in the warehouse before it shipped.
(The same warehouse was shipping online orders and stocking 123 stores while this went on.)
What I did
We made setup in the stores as easy as possible. Fixtures and displays were kitted in the warehouse first, so there was less left to do in the store.
For each store, the inventory, the fixtures, and the merchandising pallets were staged ahead of the date, so that a store could open in five days. I also worked with the retail team on the store launch playbook, to take cost out and to see the risks earlier.
What changed
Eight stores opened while I was there. Without my team’s prework in the warehouse, they couldn’t have opened, and the launch plan would have been pushed out. It wasn’t, and the company kept adding stores.