Black Friday at AS Watson’s: 105 Geeks and a warehouse that doesn’t blink

When most of Europe is refreshing their carts and chasing promo codes, the real Black Friday magic happens somewhere far from the checkout page: in buzzing fulfillment centers where every second – and every step – counts.

This year, we went inside the AS Watson’s home in Ede, the Netherlands – the e-commerce distribution center that keeps Kruidvat and Trekpleister orders moving. There, we saw how Black Friday pressure is being turned into performance: 105 Geek+ mobile robots working side by side with the team, bespoke Black Friday t-shirts everywhere you look, and a warehouse that genuinely feels ready for anything.

Black Friday is no longer a US import – and this shift makes warehouse automation more critical than ever.

• Across Europe, Black Week 2024 saw order volumes peak at 11.4 orders per second, a 205% spike compared to normal sales periods*.
• 60% of European shoppers say they wait for Black Friday to buy clothing and electronics, and e-commerce sales in Europe grew 8% on Black Friday and 10% on Cyber Monday versus the previous year**.
• Consumers are firmly digital-first: 56% of European Black Friday budgets are now allocated to online purchases with home delivery, and average planned spend sits around €277 per shopper***.

In other words: Black Friday isn’t just a marketing moment. It’s a capacity and resilience exam for every warehouse in the chain and automation has now become the answer to passing that exam.

Inside AS Watson’s three-floor Black Friday engine 

At AS Watson’s e-commerce distribution center in Ede, the intralogistics has been simplified. From beauty must-haves to everyday health products, tens of thousands of items need to be in the right place at the right time to serve Kruidvat and Trekpleister customers across the Benelux.

The building itself is three levels high, with Geek+ robots operating on the top mezzanine, where the highest storage density and picking intensity meet.

On a typical Black Friday:

• Many goods to be shared. Pre-Black Friday starts already the Thursday before and peak time will continue until Cyber Monday.
• The higher the productivity the happier customers.
• Instead of just adding more manual operations to cope, AS Watson operates with a different route: 105 mobile Geek+ robots that bring shelves directly to pickers, eliminating long walks and the most physically demanding tasks. The result is a system that’s designed to scale up and/or optimize when Black Friday hits, rather than struggle to keep up.

Together with The Geeks and a warehouse that feels like a team sport

Walk into the Ede facility on Black Friday and it doesn’t feel like a traditional warehouse. Between aisles of shelving and workstations, fleets of compact robots called The Geeks by AS Watson’s employees, glide along their routes, lifting racks and delivering them to pickers in a steady, almost rhythmic flow.

This solution has already delivered a major impact: AS Watson has effectively doubled efficiency in the automated area, enabling the warehouse to handle roughly twice the number of orders compared to the previous manual setup.

Robotics as Europe’s new peak-season playbook 

AS Watson’s approach reflects a broader reality: peak season and robotics now go hand in hand.

Goods-to-Person solutions like Geek+ bring very specific advantages during Black Friday and the surrounding weeks:

• Scalability on demand
  Need to absorb a surge in orders? Add more robots to the system rather than reconfiguring the whole warehouse or hiring large temporary teams.
• Higher productivity per square meter
  By storing more SKUs in dense, robot-served racks, the Ede facility maximizes its top mezzanine, a critical advantage when space is limited and demand keeps growing.
• Better working conditions
  Robots take over the heavy, repetitive moves. People focus on quality, accuracy, and exception handling – which is crucial when the labor market is tight and retention matters.

From a customer perspective, automation turns into something very simple: orders arrive on time, even when everyone is shopping at once.

The most exciting part? Black Friday is only one chapter.

The same robotic infrastructure that powers the Ede warehouse through peak will continue to support:

• Daily e-commerce growth outside of promotional bursts
• New campaigns and product launches for Kruidvat and Trekpleister
• Future optimization of storage strategies, routing, and labor planning

Black Friday may be chaotic on the front end – but in Ede, it’s starting to look a lot like calm, controlled, and very smart logistics powered by warehouse robotics.

*According to Ingrid Black Friday 2024 report

**According to E-Commerce Germany news Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 report

***According to Radial