Boxing clever on a huge scale
As Christmas fast approaches, staff at Dixons Carphone warehouse just outside Newark have been sorting, packing and delivering thousands of items.
Having negotiated the surge in demand during Black Friday and Cyber Monday — a relatively recent import from the United States, which sees the warehouse complete four weeks’ work in four days — the festive period brings another set of challenges.
In a section of Dixons Carphone’s 1.5msq ft site on the New Link Business Park, machinery snakes through the giant spaces and drops orders to be packed, labelled and distributed. Brown, boxed packages filter past, as do the blue “tote bins” that carry items.
The huge structures that hold 82inch televisions, gaming chairs and iPads almost touch the ceiling. Dixons Carphone sells 14,000 different products, ranging from small accessories to American-style fridge freezers with a volume of more than 600 litres.
Each part of Building One is used for a different purpose — smaller gifts ordered online by customers are arranged in one area, larger items in another, and the bulkiest orders to be taken to stores in the third.
Newark is the hub from which Dixons Carphone supplies its near-1,500 stores — which include Currys PC World — across the UK and Ireland, and sends items to customers who have ordered them online.
In the run-up to Christmas, increased demand swells the workforce to 4,500 — an extra 1,000 staff.
“You get an idea of the scale of the operation when my orders for even shrink wrap can be between £70,000 and £90,000,” said Mr Glenn Hawksworth, head of network development.
“Our customers want better value and faster service, so our business requires us to be more effective in how we do everything.
“We have to move things out of here fast. We only have two weeks’ worth of stock at any one time.
“We are in the eye of the storm now in between Black Friday and Christmas. We have had one half of it so far, so we know what to expect.”
Customers’ expectations, particularly relating to speed of delivery, have increased in recent years.
Mrs Gillian McAlister, head of branch fulfilment and direct operations, said: “We are reacting to being in an immediate world. We are a 24/7 operation that’s open 363 days a year. We close only on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.
“On days like Black Friday or in the run-up to Christmas there is so much buzz in here — it gets addictive.”
On Black Friday, DJs played music on the shop floor while some staff wore fancy dress, a situation replicated in the run-up to Christmas.
Most staff work 12-hour days and the firm operates a four days on, four days off system. Inside Building One is a small highway with road markings, pedestrian lanes and staff in hi-vis jackets buzzing from location to location, carrying on forklifts products for delivery.
This year, Dixons Carphone expects gaming-related items such as games, consoles and gaming chairs to be among its biggest sellers.
Stacked up in part of the warehouse are Arozzi Monza gaming chairs, which cost £160. Smart technology, including the Amazon Echo and Google Home speaker, are also predicted to be sought-after.
“It wasn’t that many years ago that we thought it was a bit sci-fi to have heating systems that we could control while we were out of the home. All of that is absolutely run-of-the-mill now,” said Glenn.
The store must be prepared to react to spikes in demand, caused by new product launches, changeable weather or sporting events.
“Customers increasingly like new technology,” Glenn said. “We have just had the launch of the iPhone X and we needed to get the product in stores quickly.
“There are other reasons why we see spikes: ahead of a World Cup, there will be more orders for new televisions. In October/November time, before Christmas, some people buy a new cooker.”
Glenn said the ones that were more difficult to predict were cold snaps when, for example, they would sell more fan heaters, and hot weather, when fans were in demand.
Another building houses the returns department and the repairs centre — complete with Megabites, a café that aims to fix items within five days.
It is the largest electrical repairs centre in Europe. Staff receive training from the company and repair a range of items, including televisions and laptops.
The centre is devided into areas: one team, for instance, will look at iPhones, while another tackles Samsung products.
At the back of the site is a large lorry park, filled with vehicles ready to take deliveries to regional distribution centres.
It is a sizeable operation — one that is almost as efficient as Father Christmas with his reindeer on December 24.
