Digipal has been working with a multinational fast fashion retailer since 2018 to optimise both their pick-packing and logistical processes.
By implementing our stronger, lighter, and more agile pallet solutions, we were able to significantly reduce their transportation costs and enhance their reverse logistics with the nestable space-saving feature.
Fast fashion is a high-octane industry and the logistics that support these retailers need to be able to keep up. Customers today are accustomed to next-day and even same-day delivery and the expectation for in-store stock must be able to match this – so the pressure is on to get orders packed and shipped as quickly as possible.
45%
Lighter pallet. Safer working environment with improved ergonomics and handling
30,000 Trees
Low breakage rates and sustainable plastic materials mean Digipal has saved over 30,000 trees
100%
Recycled and recyclable pallets.
60%
Less vehicle space needed for recovery, more capacity, less trailers, less CO2, more mpg
Background
This retailer employs over 72,000 staff across the world, with stores located in 15 countries and the chain still growing. A global operation like this, streamlining the logistics and reverse logistics processes can have a drastic impact on a company’s bottom line.
Having previously used wooden pallets for their picking and transportation processes, most of their pallets were only being used for one-way transportation as the loss and damage rates were so high. This meant that our client was experiencing needlessly high CapEx costs, having to purchase new pallets each year just to keep operations consistent.
Solution
Typical pick pallet solutions are often hard to manoeuvre, clunky and have relatively low load capacity, resulting in more trips back and forth.
Digipal’s Plastic Pallets provide users with a lighter and more agile form of transporting picked items. As plastic pallets can carry more than their traditional counterparts, investing in this solution allowed our fast fashion retail partner to optimise warehouse operations with greater speed and accuracy in order fulfilment.
Our plastic pallets are 50x more durable than traditional wooden pallets – meaning we were able to save our client a huge amount of their annual outgoings by simply having a more reliable solution.
With our nestable functionality, our client could store 60% more empty pallets on the back end of their logistical journey, transporting 910 units per truckload as opposed to 540 per truckload for traditional pallets.
Results
We helped streamline our client’s entire logistical process – saving on space and transportation costs thanks to our pallets’ nestable functionality. The global rollout of our innovative solutions, partnered with our asset tracking software, helped to save them valuable time and money.
What’s most impressive about this project is we have sold just over 200,000 plastic pallets to this one fast fashion retailer. Over the five years we’ve been working with them, breakages for our plastic solutions sit at 0.5% – compared to 25% with the traditional wooden pallets they had been using previously.
With one tree needed to create just eight pallets, our low breakage rates and sustainable plastic materials mean Digipal has saved over 30,000 trees!
When implemented on a large scale, the impact our solutions have on lowering our client’s environmental impact becomes evident.