Ecommerce Warehouse Upgrade - De’ Longhi case study

In recent years, the e-commerce sector has experienced exponential growth, radically transforming the dynamics of the B2C market. This increase in online sales has posed new challenges for companies, including warehouse management, the operational heart of logistics and distribution. The ability of a warehouse to effectively respond to the growing and variable demand of the online market has become crucial to sustaining the success of e-commerce activities. This is precisely the central topic of this thesis, which aims to present the strategies and techniques adopted to increase the productivity of the De’ Longhi group’s e-commerce warehouse. Through the analysis of a case study and the implementation of new techniques, various approaches that the company has experimented with to address the challenges posed by the growth of online sales will be examined. In particular, the focus will be on a new distribution of the items managed by the main warehouse in question and by other warehouses within the group, as well as on the reorganization of the structure and internal operations, and the management and fulfillment of orders from e-commerce platforms. This aims to overcome the peak order period expected between September and December 2024, a peak that in 2023 completely saturated the warehouse's capacity. With very positive forecasts for further e-commerce growth, improvement activities were necessary.