When it comes to your warehouse – having your storage prepared is essential to smoother operation.
Is your business ready for the holidays? With the spike in retail sales, most industries require additional help and significant planning before the holiday season approaches. Even if you run a small business, ensuring that you’re well staffed, stocked, and organized is essential for a successful season. When it comes to your warehouse – having your storage prepared is essential to operations. There are a few things you can do to prepare and help you get a jump on the madness.
Look At Forecasts
One of the first steps you can take to prepare yourself is to look into industry forecasts to help predict your sales for the year. Take a look at your sales from the last few years at the same time and consider what promotional materials you may have used vs. what you’ve added this year. Using this data, take a look at local spending trends as well. With consumers being less active in the last few years, it’s likely that you don’t want to overstock yourself; however, you also don’t want to lose any opportunities. When you have all of this data in hand, you can begin to make additional preparations.
Optimize Your Staffing Levels
Depending on your forecast you may find that your current staff levels are sufficient. If you believe you might have a sales spike, it might benefit you to bring in some seasonal help. Now is the time to start planning for any additional support as well as ensuring your scheduling for the holidays is done in advance. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the holidays are also the time of year where many employees wish to visit family and friends, not only will you be happier with a full schedule done in advance, but they will be able to plan better as well.
Double Check Inventory
There’s nothing worse than running out of products during the holiday rush. Not only will you miss out on the opportunity to make a profit, but customers will be disappointed if they’re unable to complete their shopping lists. Have a complete, recent update of what you have in storage and ensure that you’re keeping track of orders as they’re en route.
Take A Look At Layout
Is your warehouse organized as well as possible? If not, now is the time to make changes to optimize your workflow. Not only should all of your products be easy to find, access, and move, but your setup should be flawless as well. In times of holiday stress employees and supervisors alike are more likely to make mistakes and take shortcuts. Take this into account and make sure any damaged equipment is repaired and that there are enough materials for them to use.
Go Over Training
With the likelihood of stress based mistakes at its peak, now is the perfect time to do safety and training refreshers. This is particularly important if you are bringing in new hires for the season. While it’s tempting to let new employees learn on the go, it’s better to ensure everyone is thoroughly trained and re-trained.
Make Space Work for You with Metro Shelving!
If you’re a homeowner or run a business, you can depend on Metro Shelving. If you need to outfit a warehouse, give us a call at (800) 400-7500. Call us even if you aren’t looking to outfit a warehouse because if your garage, laundry room, or kitchen pantry are in need of help, we can help you too. Are you on social media? Follow us on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.