Dakota Warehouse offers Pick and Pack distribution for small businesses, large companies and everything in between. They have cooler, freezer and dry storage to handle just about everything.
What is Pick and Pack Distribution?
“Pick and pack” is just what it sounds like, said Roy Drake, owner of Dakota Warehouse. It starts with having the product ready at the warehouse for Dakota Warehouse’s clients. When that client gets an order for a product, Dakota Warehouse uses the information to fulfill the order.
Dakota Warehouse “picks” the product, then “packs” it to its final destination.
Pick and Pack Distribution is an essential part of supply chain management, often handling the most tedious part – delivering specific goods to their final customers. With the increasing popularity of online ecommerce, it’s an ideal solution for several reasons.
The Benefits of Pick and Pack Distribution
- It cuts warehousing and staffing costs for companies that need storage and shipping solutions.
- It allows companies to process lots of small orders efficiently by allowing a dedicated provider like Dakota Warehouse to fulfill orders.
- It leverages Dakota Warehouse’s central location and relationships with every type of shipping company – from the United States Postal Service to Federal Express, United Parcel Service (UPS) and others – to minimize freight costs.
How Pick and Pack Distribution Works
- Dakota Warehouse inventories its client’s products and prepares them for Pick and Pack Distribution.
- Dakota Warehouse works with the client to define a process that delivers all the information they need from that client’s ordering system. Oftentimes this can be a common email alert.
- Start processing orders! “We go and physically pick individual products off of our shelves. We pull from pallet and truckload quantities,” he said. “We pick the product, based on a specific order, package it, get it ready for shipping and then ship it off to the final customer.”
That’s the fulfillment process.
For example, when Sweet Baby Wraps arrive, there are 20 to a box. The items are shelved. Then when a wrap is ordered, an employee pulls one out and charges the client a tiny fee for that pick. It’s then packaged.
“We add the best shipping cost, send the product off and the client gets billed for it,” Drake said.
He said Dakota Warehouse spreads its costs among 20 or more different customers. Everyone shares in the savings.
“So instead of a customer hiring someone to work for them exclusively six hours daily, we have employees who work an eight–hour day for all our companies. We drive that efficiency into our business.”
“If you go to a restaurant and buy a buffalo burger, there is a good likelihood it comes from a large food distributor. They contract with a company down the street from us and we store their products,” Drake said.
The ground buffalo comes from the manufacturer to our freezer. It sits here until a full truckload gets built up,” he said. “Then they ship it out of here to Billings, Montana, and they distribute it from there.”