Vipshop introduces ‘goods to person’ picking method, tripling the picking efficiency by 3 times

The customer

Vip.com (NYSE: VIPS) is the third largest ecommerce platform in China, specializing in online branded discounts covering a wide range of products from apparels, shoes & bags, cosmetics, maternity and child products to home goods and more. With over 330 million members and 430 million annual orders, VIP.com is the world’s largest online discount retailer.

The challenge

VIP.com needed to rapidly increase the efficiency, agility and flexibility of its warehouses to support orders growth and assist the success of its flash sales business model. It was facing the following challenges:

• Large inbound and outbound traffic marred by lower manual efficiency and higher error rate
• Massive SKUs presenting various storage needs and high fluctuations
• Need for large-scale efficient and accurate small parts picking

Our solution

• The Geek+ picking system was implemented in under two months, launched in August 2016
• Full system included combination of wave picking and order picking
• Project area covered 6000m2, deploying 121 intelligent robots and 2000 shelves racks, accommodating an inventory of 1 million daily pieces

The Geek+ impact

• Daily shipping capacity reached 80,000-100,000 pieces
• Picking efficiency multiplied by three: 400-600 pieces / hour / station
• Significant labor cost saving
• Increased storage space
• A flexible picking tool, scalable during big promotional days