“They’re half as big, so we get a better deal from the carrier.” “When you compare the bubble mailer with the poly mailer bags, the difference is about a 50 percent dimensional savings, and 10 percent less weight” Goh says. The poly bags occupy less space than the bubble mailers, so they can ship less volume. Also, thanks to the new poly mailer bag packaging method, Zenni was able to negotiate a better postage rate from UPS. The new printed poly mailer bags, bright teal and replete with Zenni branding and logos, got an immediate positive reaction from customers, who appreciated the improved packaging experience. The durable glasses case, it turns out, can withstand about 200 lb of weight, negating the need for the gentle care function of bubble shippers anyhow. The automated pack stations use printed pre-made poly mailers on a roll instead of bubble mailers, cutting the cost to $0.04 to $0.05 per polybag pouch mailer, a significant savings in material costs alone at the volume Zenni pushes out daily. The bubble mailers the company had previously used cost about $0.15 apiece. On the automated stations, we’ve reduced that to five steps, which saves a lot of time, and increases productivity by about 40 percent.” “On the manual stations, an operator has nine steps to complete per shipper. “One metric I use is the number of steps an operator requires to move each shipper,” Goh says. ![]() But seeing the old process and new process side by side brings the difference between the two into sharp relief. PSL shipping labels printed from a Zebra label printer. Roughly half the volume of glasses shipped out are still hand-packed in bubble wrap packs with hand-applied 4- x 6-in. “The pneumatic heat seal produced on the PAC Machinery bagger, which creates a comparatively thick seal with high integrity, is what drove us to add more of the PAC machines,” Goh says, adding that he’s had good success with the Sharp machines as well.Īs it stands, Zenni is not fully converted over to the automated pack stations. He then purchased a single Rollbag R1285 automatic bagger from PAC Machinery, and is in the process of adding three more, so the fulfillment center will soon contain eight total automated pack stations with tabletop baggers. ![]() Goh initially purchased four SX automated poly bagging machines from Sharp. There he was introduced to PAC Machinery and Sharp Packaging Systems by Pregis. Goh attended PACK EXPO Las Vegas in October of 2017 to research automated bagging systems. Considering all of these factors, Zenni turned to automation to manage the skyrocketing growth. And when volumes are going nowhere but up, the cost of secondary packaging material for shipping goes from negligible to having a big impact on the bottom line. Given its NorCal address, space is at a premium at Zenni. But according to Simon Goh, Shipping Manager at Zenni, the company has been facing the same dearth of capable labor other industries have encountered. At its current pace, that equates to 10,000 to 15,000 individual packages per day.įulfillment for Zenni had long meant manual pack stations with an operator picking the frames from the shippers, scanning the frame’s barcode to identify and match with a mailing label, hand-packing first into the glasses case, then into hand-sealed bubble mailers before hand-labeling with a separate pressure-sensitive shipping label. While a certain type of customer had found and used Zenni over the years and there has been an organically cultivated customer base, this recent plunge into marketing has the company growing at a 25-30% pace, year over year. ![]() With that supply chain firmly established after 15 years, the company has only recently been earmarking budget to marketing, making a splash by being the first optical industry brand to sponsor an NBA basketball team and have its logo appear on gameday jerseys-also the first logo on a Chicago Bulls jersey. Zenni spent its first decade on a shoestring budget with little to no marketing, developing a vertically integrated manufacturing and supply chain that’s not beholden to any of the industry giants that exist today. That means that many people are simply denied access price is a barrier to being able to see.” “The company’s ethos is rooted in seeing that people are being, effectively, ripped off in paying for prescription eyewear,” Pate says, “The cost in making those goods is nowhere near what the cost is that’s passed on to the consumer.
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