Why Warehouses Use Credit Card Processing Systems

Today’s society is incredibility busy yet with inflation, consumers want to find ways to save money. Consumers are comparing prices by researching catalogs and the Internet for the best deals or sales on potential purchases. Individuals are finding deals, saving money in gas and time by purchasing gifts online, and having them delivered to the receiver. Warehouse facilities that offer credit card processing primarily help increase profitability.

To increase sales, warehouses can assist retailers to promote 90 day same as cash bill me later options that offers point-of-sales-credit to on-line customers. This gives customers an alternative to credit card use. It also speeds transactions, because consumers are accustomed to using their ATM.

Warehouses that offer credit card processing provide order-processing streamlining, deliver the funds directly to the retailers account, track rejected transactions for exception reporting, and provide it both for direct orders and web stores. The warehouse can accept credit, debit, country cards, PayPal, bill me later, and bank transfers, which gives consumers an abundance of payment options. Warehouses can also accept global payment types for multi-currency, recurring payments, and payment security.

Companies such as The Golf Warehouse offer the use of a system like GERS Retail Systems, which is simple to use and simple to teach employees. It allows the warehouse to provide immediate inventory look-up and reservation with quick check out. This system offers benefits like higher productivity, a higher incidence of repeat customers because of order accuracy, higher customer satisfaction, managing deliveries and customer pick-ups, and it integrates with the warehouse management systems.

Sources:
Gogetagrip.com
cybersource.com
businesswire

Warehouse Slotting

A warehouse manager must keep track of not only how much inventory passes through the warehouse for retailers but also the placement of that inventory to maintain an efficient operation. This includes monitoring the location the items are placed within the warehouse, time it takes for the merchandise to be picked, assembled, and packed as well as the height of the inventory on the shelves.


There is an abundance of forethought that must go into determining placement of the incoming product to avoid waste. If you have a high volume fulfillment facility, you will need to maximize storage space, oversee shipping errors, and productivity. The best approach is to conduct a slotting analysis.


What is slotting?

In the most basic sense, it is the optimization of materials handling by strategic placement of inventory. The benefits include:

• Increased picking and packing productivity by reducing travel time for the workers
• Reducing labor required to replenish inventory by maximizing space. i.e. pre-selected space for specific palletized items
• Reducing labor required to pick and pack by streamlining processes
• Improving material flow by reducing response time to batch items
• Shelving items according to weight so that heavy items are on the bottom and lighter on top thus reducing injuries
• Increasing accuracy by separating similar items

What has been mentioned is only a fraction of the benefits of slotting inventory appropriately. By the use of software planning tools via a warehouse management system, you will increase space, reduce shipping errors, and increasing productivity

Sources:
CEI Logistics
Manhattan Associates

Why Use a Warehouse?

Have a great product to send to market, but you do not have the resources to receive, store, and distribute those goods? Then a warehouse facility may be the best method of distribution for your company. Warehousing provides an enormous advantage for industries that do not have the capital resources to establish a warehouse facility. Here are some of the benefits of warehousing.

Warehouses do not just offer a place to store products. They also offer services like:

• Customer service personnel to manage orders, customer issues, and problem resolution
• Inventory management to track just in time production and inventory movement
• They track the movement of the inventory by monitoring when the merchandise arrives to the facility, where it is stored, how much of it is transported
• A warehouse facility also offer a pass through for inventory that needs a drop off and pick up point for products that are on their way to a destination

Transportation plays a major role for warehouse facilities. Because of the sheer volume of goods that flow through warehouse facilities, the warehouse is able to negotiate transpiration costs and ultimately save money for the retailer

Warehouses specialize in different types of product services. Some warehouses may have the facility to store and transport frozen foods. Another may deal in soft goods such as clothing and offer steaming and pressing services, which prepare the product for display at the department store. Another warehouse may deal in the particular storage and transport of produce. It is critical to understand the maintenance requirements of your product, and how the warehouse will keep those products safe and viable through storage and transport.

Source:
Fulfillment Services

Warehouse Safety Precautions

Workplace injuries account for millions of dollars in workers’ compensation claims every year. Unfortunately, the only people that these claims benefit are the attorneys that are representing the claimants. The injured party is unable to work, which ultimately affects their income, and the company is often embroiled in litigation. Incident rates affect the yearly rate that the company pays the worker’s compensation insurance carrier. Unfortunately, that rate tends to increase annually. The more injuries that the company claims; the higher the insurance rates are.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Office of communications, there has been a consistent decrease in workplace accidents and illnesses the last six years. Warehouses that have made a concerted effort to reduce accidents do reap rewards. The benefit of this effort is lower absenteeism, fewer workers’ compensation claims, less litigation, and few administrative costs. The ultimate prize is a lot less money disappearing from the coffers.

Ralph Cox with the Charlotte, NC based company Tompkins and Associates, the following precautions are recommended.

• Make success a measure of success
• Continually train employees
• Apply disciplinary action if safety rules are not followed by implementing progressive discipline
• Pay attention to near misses; do not just address the result but the cause as well
• Request that someone from another similar facility conduct an unofficial inspection
• Exercise constant vigilance by conducting monthly or even weekly inspections
• Encourage anonymous reports from employees about potential hazards
  

Ultimately, a safe workplace leads to fewer expenses due to illness and injuries. Research additional tips on OSHA.gov.

Source:
hr tools
logistics management

Warehouse Automation

How do warehouses keep track of their inventory? What is coming in or going out? How much is coming and where does it go? It is easy enough to bring inventory into a warehouse and place it on pallets and shelves to be picked and packed later, but inventory costs would sky rocket without any monitoring system.

Warehouse companies have the option of using a warehouse management system (WMS). A WMS is a warehousing system that allows the company to:

• Centrally manage orders using a computerized tracking system. The system will integrate an automated data collections method through the implementation of a complex system using radio frequency through a portable computer terminal with bar code scanners. There are also much more sophisticated tracking systems, which uses voice recognition software.
• Automate materials handling equipment such as carousels and serration systems
• Offer an advanced shipment notification as well as replenishment needs
• Cycle count
• Track labor for productivity reporting
• Offers work and task management
• Track cross docking
• Follow inventory ownership, billing, and invoicing for multiple businesses
• Tracks quantity, location of the item at any point, and unit of measures
• Tracks order information to determine where to stock, pick, and sequence with which to perform the function most efficiently

It is obvious that by utilizing a warehouse management system, a warehouse company can control the movement and storage of material, which reduces inventory and labor costs as well as increases storage capacity and inventory accuracy.

Sources:
Corewms.com
Inventoryops.com

Apparel Logistics

When we go shopping at the departments stores, we see clothing nicely pressed and on hangers. The clothing is labeled, tagged, and presented so that we see them in the best light. Fortunately, for retailers, the process begins at the warehouse.

Typically, garment manufacturers do not normally worry much about the how the apparel arrives to the retailer. The garments are arbitrarily tossed in cartons that are the incorrect sizes, which increase creasing and damage. To top things off, the boxes and poly bags that the garments are packed in need to disposed of.

Warehouses offer softline services, which is the processing of garments prior to delivery to a retail outlet. Therefore, whether they are sent by ship or air, each garment is put through a preparatory process.

• Pick and pack service
• Label the garment
• Repair defects on the garment by either machine or hand sewing
• They run the garments through a steam tunnel which takes out all the creases or hand iron when necessary
• They hang the garments
• They are run through metal detectors to make sure that they do not have pins
• Tag them with price tags
• They are put through quality inspection
• They are put in bags and packed in the appropriate size boxes
• You also have the option to vacuum pack items to reduce metric volume
  

There is definite value in using an apparel logistics company to deal with the products. The products are presented to the retail outlet in the best presentation. There is less delay in getting them to the store in saleable condition, and the processing cost is lower because the warehouse is equipped to handle the volume of garments.


Sources:
Sekosynergy.com
advancedsupplychaim.com

Keeping Track of Picking and Packing

So what is the big deal about picking and packing? It is a bunch of people pulling stuff off a shelf and sending it to a customer. Well, it is not that simple. A warehouse company offers you picking and packing services. Although, this may sound simple, logistically it is quite complicated.

The warehouse worker picks the products for destination, repacks it with the appropriate labels, and inserts the invoice. Once completed, they will process the boxes or pallets for transport on train, truck, or ship.

A warehouse management system helps control the storage and movement of materials from receiving, stocking, picking, packing, and shipping. In order for the warehouse to keep the process moving accurately and smoothly, they must have a good understanding of how orders are received, processed, and what is expected from the client. Fast accurate turnaround is important to a successful operation.

How Does the Warehouse Do This?

• Warehouse companies use various methods to keep track of inventory and shipping by the use of a barcode scanner, wireless computers, or wireless LAN to monitor transactions. We will go in depth about this later.
• They keep the process seamless by following best practice processes: such as the 80/20 rules which follows the premise that 20% of most products account for 80% of the orders. By understanding this premise, they strategically place the products in the warehouse so the workers can pull the product and pack them for shipping most efficiently.
• They check orders for accuracy, verify packing, and monitor serial and lot numbers.

Source
MultiChannel Merchant

What Happens to Your Cargo After it Leaves the Warehouse?

How would you like to deal with the logistical nightmare of planning, transporting, and completing the required documents to allow you to ship your goods to a foreign country? Warehouse services provide the logistical knowledge and service that will allow you to ship your product globally and efficiently without dealing with the painful process yourself.
Once your product leaves the warehouse, it is out of your hands, so it would be a good idea to have a basic knowledge of what international container shipping involves.

First and Foremost Container Safety and Security
For many years, the International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) has regulated the shipping industry. The shipping industry works closely with ports, terminals, and customs authorities to keep the shipment and crew safe. They are required to record everything, every container has a unique identification, the cargo is checked, and the cargo owner declares the content within the manifest.

Because of 9/11, the International Ship and Port Facility Code (ISPS), which was enacted in 2004, have regulated the shipping industry. This code requires 1) The ship to have a security plan and monitors who has access to the ship and 2) the crew and staff must be trained in security procedures.

Benefits For You
The ultimate benefit to the cargo owner and to the public is that the warehouse company deals with the logistics of getting your merchandise shipped, and the products is kept secure, water tight, and refrigerated when needed. The security issues are in the hands of someone who has the expertise to handle them.

Sources
Container Shipping
Worldmapper

Warehouses Use Bar Coding to Track Inventory Movement

The benefits of a bar coding system is far reaching. It tracks storage and retrieval, picking and packing, increases productivity, and reduces inventory costs. It also helps to reduce lost items. Because the process is fully automated, you won't deal with human error.

What Does A Bar Code System Involve?
Basically, each item is assigned its own symbology. These are the lines that you see on packages that are scanned through a reader. Those lines are encoded with data about the product. Think about it in terms of when you go to the grocery store and the checker scans the products through the machine. We usually know them as UPC codes: Universal Product Code. Oddly enough this product code is also the most limited and most suited for the grocery industry. If you deal with a multitude of products you will want to check into the bar coding system that utilizes the 128 alphanumeric symbols called ASCII. Because of greater flexibility in ASCII coding, there are fewer readability issues.

A committee reviews and assigns codes for millions of product, so there are typically no problems with duplication. You will want to mitigate issues within your organization though by deleting obsolete products that are no longer in your inventory.

How to Collect Data?
There are several methods used for collecting and manipulating the data: scanning, touch screen, keypad, and voice input. The coding is tested for readability, so whether it is printed or badly deteriorated, you should still be able to scan and translate the information via the software provided.

Many companies will typically recoup the cost of installation within the first year of use, because it will mitigate loss and decrease inventory cost.

Source
Bar coding Symbologies
ATI

Warehousing Accommodates E-commerce Sales

A growing area for years has been e-commerce. It has become obvious that with the increase in gas prices, Americans want to travel less, so shopping from home via the internet is becoming quite popular. Many individuals are willing to wait for their items if it means that they do not have to drive somewhere to purchase it. To accommodate the growth in e-commerce, businesses are turning to warehousing distribution services to get their product to the consumer as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Businesses that specialize in e-commerce turn to warehousing because they have a commodity but do not have the facilities available to accommodate order fulfillment. Warehouses provide the storage space, the picking and packing services, prepare the items for shipping, then sends the items to the appropriate location. The positive aspect is that clients are able to take advantage of the vendor relationships that have been established, so they are effectively distribute the product at a reduced cost, because it can be shipped in conjunction with products from other businesses. They also do not have to worry about finding a place to store their product.

The warehouse distribution facility is a good way for businesses to take advantage of the already established storage and distribution without forking out the funds for the initial set up. Businesses have found that warehouse distribution may be the right method of expanding their business.

Source
E-Commerce Development
Rush Order