Solutions

9 Best Warehouse Storage Solutions and Ideas for an Organized Warehouse

Your warehouse should be setup as efficient and organized as possible.

Not only does organizing your warehouse assist in time management and inventory control, but it restructures the business process. Ordering, storing, pulling and shipping will all be faster. One of the top reasons for cart abandonment is because of extended shipping times.

Not only does this satisfy consumers, but it will keep your employees happy. That’s because an easy to navigate workplace can make the job easier. Keep reading for the 9 best warehouse storage solutions and ideas for an organized warehouse.

1. Create a Smarter Floorplan

Your warehouse’s floorplan should be assessed to ensure it’s running as efficiently as possible. This will help employees fill orders quickly. A smarter plan for your floorplan should do the following:

• Maximize space
• Minimize handling
• Create easier access for inventory
• Be flexible with storage
• Create working spaces

To achieve a smarter floorplan, you must test the physical workflow for employee tasks. This will give you a better understanding of how you can improve workspaces.

2. Consider Shelving and Other Storage Solutions

You can improve storage solutions by adding racks, shelving, and other storage solutions to the warehouse. The size and location of your storage solutions will be based on your business needs. Well-organized warehouse space will help you work smarter without having to work harder.

You can use vertical space to maximize your storage solutions. Choose the tallest shelves and stackable shelf bins for full benefits. This will ensure you’re achieving the best storage solutions possible.

3. Organize Inventory

Once you have your shelves and racks in place, you must focus on how you’ll organize your inventory. Stock can be separated into three categories, depending on movement. For instance, your most profitable items should be easier to pull because it accounts for most of the total movement.

Your second and least important items will be placed in more difficult to pull areas. That’s because they account for less movement. However, there should be ease of access for all items to simplify the process.

4. Label for Improved Organization

Another organization tip is to label everything. The shelves or racks should have labels, as should the products. This will speed along the pulling process for faster shipping.

Labeling everything in your warehouse will be better for safety too. Also, label work areas and safety hazards. Safety signs are crucial for equipment use and warehouse capacity.

5. Accelerate the Pulling Process

You can speed up the pulling process with shelving, storage bins, labels, and a well-thought floorplan. These will help the staff find and pull the right goods as quickly as possible. Along with accelerating the pulling process, they can reduce errors.

Another smart way to speed the process along is to utilize order picking technology. Review your finances to see if there’s room to invest in pick-to-light systems, hand-held RF readers, barcode scanning, or voice picking systems. If it’s not in the budget, consider free systems you can implement.

6. Maintain Warehouse

Once you’ve established a functioning warehouse, you must maintain it. This requires you to continue labeling and efficient storing. It also means keeping the warehouse clean and organized.

Start the workday identifying and fixing the cleanliness issues. Make it required for workspaces to be cleaned, including sweeping the floors and putting tools away. These objectives will increase productivity and safety for your employees.

7. Receive Goods More Efficiently

Improving how you receive goods is about as important as how you pull orders. You can ramp up efficiency in receiving by creating space to sort and store incoming goods. Choose an inventory management system that provides updated information on inventory levels.

Other ways you can help your warehouse workers receive products more efficiently is to unload quickly and safely with forklifts and pallet jacks. Quality control can be improved by identifying and labeling damage upon receiving.

8. Ask Warehouse Workers for Input

The staff knows the ins and outs of the warehouse better than anyone. You should ask for input and suggestions to increase productivity. If they have complaints, hear them out so you can find a solution.

When making changes, be sure to include informing warehouse workers. If there’s a need, consider training or holding a meeting to review the differences. This will help you avoid confusion and delays down the road.

9. Reassess Warehouse Periodically

Setting up and maintain an efficient warehouse includes reassessing needs periodically. This means reviewing inventory management and different warehouse organization systems to improve productivity levels. Check the functional flow path for yourself so you can identify obstacles and remove them.

Reviewing the warehouse’s blueprints will ensure you’re making the most of the available space.
The most important thing is to ensure everything is safely up to code. Regularly scheduled reviews will help you identify which features can be improved.

More Warehouse Storage Solutions Tips

These are only some of the warehouse storage solutions available, but you don’t have to complicate it. The staff should experience a productivity boost without additional stress. You can help eliminate problems by financing improvements.

One of the best improvements you can make to your warehouse is to invest in industrial epoxy coatings. This coating will be able to withstand the abuse warehouse floors experience without breaking the budget. A good installer will be able to patch or repair holes and cracks in the concrete for a smoother surface before the industrial epoxy goes down.

Time to Get Organized

It’s time to get your warehouse organized for better efficiency. This will result in much happier staff and satisfied consumers. You can utilize these 9 best warehouse storage solutions and ideas to achieve an organized warehouse.

Your business can use the best advice and tips to improve efficiency and productivity levels today. If you liked this article and are interested in reading more like it, feel free to browse the rest of our blog.

Best Practices and Ecommerce Shipping Solutions

The number of people who shop online will rise to over 2.14 billion in 2021. That’s a vast pool of consumers. If you haven’t taken your business online, this statistic should persuade you to do that. 

But as more people opt to buy online, the number of online businesses is rapidly increasing. This creates a fiercely competitive market environment. It’s the reason you need to find fresh creative ways to market your product.

A smart move is to provide attractive eCommerce shipping solutions to your potential clients. The vast majority of online shoppers cite shipping options as the most critical factor when it comes to their shopping experience.

Indeed, shipping is one of the top elements of your online store. Businesses that can effectively implement best practices for shipping stand a better chance to draw more clients, enhance customer satisfaction, and experience higher conversion rates. 

Online stores that fail to offer shipping solutions that meet their customer’s high expectations, on the other hand, will inevitably experience high rates of cart abandonment. 

In this article, we explain several best practices and shipping solutions for your eCommerce store. Read on to learn more.

Highlight Your Ecommerce Shipping Solutions  

When it comes to online shopping, good consumer experience is critical. Customers will hardly revisit a site after they’ve had a bad experience or two. 

Take the time to create customer awareness regarding your shipping policies. Highlight some of the strong points of your shipping strategy, including the shipping options, return policy, and fulfillment. Doing so reduces cart abandonments.

Try to provide flexible shipping plans that are based on the amount the customer spends, how frequently they shop, the season they buy, the area they live in, and so on. Customize your shipping solutions to suit your customers’ needs. Always visit relevant sites to find out more creative shipping solutions to adopt.

Provide Free Shipping

Free shipping is undoubtedly the most attractive factor for online shoppers. About two-thirds of customers recommend a retailer based on this factor alone. High shipping costs, on the other hand, are the biggest contributor to cart abandonment.

Of course, free shipping is never really free. Someone pays for it – either you or the client. This means you either accept lower profit margins or your consumers pay higher prices.

Today’s online shoppers expect free shipping, so don’t think twice about providing it. If you don’t, you’ll be missing out on potential sales. The main concern, of course, is how to ship products for free and still make a profit.

The smart move is to have a shipping system where customers can enjoy free shipping only after their order has met a certain amount. For instance, you can provide free shipping on orders over $30. Once you start to provide free shipping options, you’ll begin to see an increase in the average order volume.

Ensure Any Shipping Costs Are Clear At Checkout

In case you don’t provide free shipping or only do so on orders above a specific dollar value, it’s important to make the shipping costs clear at checkout. The customer should be able to see the shipping costs once they view the order summary screen. It’s one of shipping best practices that’ll keep cart abandonment low.

Why?

Well, many customers are willing to pay for shipping, but no one likes surprises. If potential buyers suddenly get blindsided by high shipping expenses, they’ll most likely abandon their cart.

Let Customers Know the Expected Delivery Date

Most customers consider shipping time a vital factor when making a purchasing decision. That’s why you need to give customers a delivery estimate for the item they’re purchasing during checkout. This estimate, of course, depends on the date and shipping method they select.

Where customers have no idea when their item will reach them, they’ll find it hard to make a purchasing decision. Find a suitable tool that provides a delivery estimate for potential clients. This will give potential customers the information they need and reduce the chances of cart abandonment.

Keep Customers Informed During Shipping

Now that a customer has placed an order on your store and you’ve sent the item, you may think that all is done. Nothing could be further from the truth. Customers expect to receive confirmation about their orders before the orders reach them.

Come up with a system of communication that keeps your customers informed while their items are in transit. This builds trust and contributes to a positive customer experience.

Deal With Problems Right Away

Your customer may have chosen the best way to ship their products, but sometimes the unexpected happens. Packages could get damaged lost. When that happens, the customer sees it as your responsibility, though that may not necessarily be the case.

Remember, you’re the one who chose the carrier who either damaged or lost the shipment. Therefore, you’ll need to do what’s necessary to make things right. As soon as you discover a problem with a client’s package, do the following:

• Find out the tracking details of the shipment online
• Verify whether the customer’s address and contact details were correctly recorded
• Call the carrier to find out the status of the package
• Follow up with the carrier till the issue is finally resolved
• Ship a replacement package to the client right away

Ultimately, the goal is to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction possible. Making your client wait until the carrier can locate a lost shipment is unacceptable. It’s best to replace the parcel and eventually recoup the loss after the carrier traces the item or compensates you for the item.

Adopt E-Commerce Best Practices Today

Adopting efficient shipping best practices is one of the guaranteed ways to enhance the online shopping experience. Keep in mind that the consumer’s journey does not end the moment they make a purchase. Instead, it ends after they receive their package in good condition and on time.

It’s the reason you need to implement reliable eCommerce shipping solutions to ensure that you’re meeting your customers’ expectations.

Would you like to read more great content like this? Please keep visiting our blog.

The 3 Easiest Solutions for How to Improve a Website

Not too long ago mobilegeddon swept the face of the internet, and websites that didn’t keep up were left in the dark. Every day, sites are finding the need to upgrade, but knowing how to improve a website often requires some intense coding knowledge.

You’ve got a site, and you’re looking to beef it up a bit, but you’re not an I.T. expert. So what do you do? Thankfully we’ve got all the answers! So, keep reading and we’ll give you some simple website improvement ideas even your sweet Granny could do.

How to Improve a Website

Say Thanks

Putting in simple thank-you page after a visitor has taken something you offered on your site is a great way to keep them around. These are easy to draw up and easy to implement, but they go a long way for your customer.

Be Quick

One of the biggest reasons people leave a site is because it takes too long to load. Visitors expect pages to load in less than two seconds. Three or more seconds of waiting and they’re out of there!

There are a lot of technical things you can do to help decrease your page loading time, but we don’t have time for that. Instead, here’s a couple things you can do instead that don’t require a Ph.D. in I.T.

Fix Broken Links

Quickly check your site pages and see if you have any broken links. Not only can these slow down your site, but visitors are easily turned off by the sight of a 404 error.

Turn off Unused Plugins

There are a lot of useful plugins that will help improve your site, but unused plugins running in the background will only slow down the whole process. Look at your list of plugins and power down the ones that you know you’re not using.

Use More Whitespace

As tempting as it might be to advertise your services all over your site, but too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. It may feel like having whitespace on your site is a waste of potential space, but it keeps your visitors focused.

Utilizing more whitespace is a great and easy way to improve your site. A quick declutter of your site and people will be much more engaged with the content you want them to see.

Outsource

At the end of the day, the easiest way to get a website improvement is to get someone else to do it for you. Get a friend to do it for you, hire a local web agency, or go international and let a Swedish webbyra handle it for you!

Website Improvement

Putting these straightforward improvements into practice will put you one step ahead of your competition and give your site the extra boost you’ve been looking for.

If you liked these tips on how to improve a website, then you should check out what other great tips we have for improving your business and getting local leads for your business.

12 Local SEO Solutions That Will Help You Outrank the Competition

Why should local SEO solutions matter to your business?

Out of all of the ways to market your business, more and more people are focusing on local search. For the first few years of internet marketing, business owners and marketers were all about SEO. Then around 2009, the marketing topic was social media. Today, the big marketing topic is local search.

There are a couple of simple reasons why it’s so important to your business.

According to HubSpot, 76% of people who do a local search pick up the phone and call a business.

44% of clicks go to the top search result. The top three results get on average 75% of all of the clicks.

Are you starting to understand how improving your local search results can mean more money in your pocket?

Would you like to know how you can make that happen?

Read on for 12 local SEO solutions you can use to improve your search rankings.

How Does Your Site Look in Searches Now?

If you have a goal to improve how your website appears in local search results, it helps to know how your site currently appears. This will help you track your progress as your search results change.

The trick here is to understand that people in different locations will have different search results. Even if they’re in the same town or the same room.

Google’s search results can vary depending on the device you use, your search history, your Google account and your IP address or location.

With so many variables, how can you get an accurate picture of how your website appears?

One workaround is to use a local search emulator. This will help you figure out how you appear according to location. A search emulator will allow you to change your location, so you can see how your site appears throughout your service area.

Know How Your Audience Will Look for You

Do you know how your customer thinks? In other words, how will your customer search for you?

There are a number of questions you should ask yourself to answer this question.

• Is your customer at home or at work?
• Are they on a mobile device or on a desktop computer?
• Are they searching in the middle of the afternoon or late at night?
• What is the problem they want help with?
• What are 15-20 search terms/phrases they would use in Google to find you?

Answering these questions will give you a better understanding as to what keywords you should try to rank higher for.

You should also consider positioning yourself for long-tail keyword searches vs. broader searches.

Think of it as the difference between searching for “fitness centers” and “fitness centers with a pool.” Fitness centers will have much greater competition, while fitness centers with a pool serve a genuine interest and will have less competition.

A Three-Pack Is Not Related to Beer

Currently, when you search for local businesses, you’ll see the top 3 search results. It used to be 7. That’s why improving your ranking is more important than ever.

Local SEO solutions such as filling out your MyBusiness listing can improve results.

The process to claim your listing is straightforward. Click on the above link and fill out your information. There is a verification process. Google will send a postcard with a PIN number to your address. It does need to be a physical address.

Once that part is complete, go into your account and fill out your profile. Make sure your description gives people a reason to contact you and be as specific as you can. Fill out your hours accurately, upload a few images and your company logo.

Content, Content, Content!

While these local SEO solutions are important, it’s also important to remember that as crucial as it is to get people to visit your website, they need a reason to stay there. You can do this by creating value for your site visitors.

The best way to create value is by creating content that will make people return to your site over and over again. That’s how you get people to like and trust you.

The more relevant content you have the better. A recent study by Traffic Generation Caf? showed that websites that have 21-54 posts get 30% more traffic.

There are case studies of businesses who have reported using content marketing to increase revenue by a whopping 438%

Improve Internal Links on Your Site

Linking your website’s internal links together helps customers use your website, and add link juice between pages.

Link juice is a way to let search engines know which pages on your site are the most important.

One word of caution: When adding internal links, it may be tempting to add a bunch of internal links on all of your web pages. Don’t do it!

By having a few internal links on each page, you maintain the quality of your links.

Get Quality Backlinks

Out of all of the local SEO solutions, one of the most talked about today is backlinks. A backlink is simply another website that links to your website.

The trick to making backlinks work for local search is that you have to get QUALITY links.

A shotgun approach to backlinks no longer works.

We go over a couple of ways (directories and Google’s My Business listings) to get started throughout this article.

You can also write guest articles for industry and local publications to get quality backlinks to your website.

What’s the Competition Doing?

Knowing how and where your competition ranks in search results can help you understand where your potential customers may be going.

You’ll also quickly learn what keywords your competition may be trying to rank for.

Here’s what to pay attention to when you’re doing competitive research:

• Your top 5-10 competitors
• Each competitor’s GoogleMyBusiness Listing. Pay attention to the text and images and look for keywords and locations they might be trying to rank for.
• Customer reviews – how many and are the reviews positive or negative.

You can either do this on your own or use local SEO solutions like Crunchbase or SEM Rush.

NAP & Structured Data Markup

We can’t talk about your website without a little geek-speak.

NAP is simply your name, address, and phone number. This cannot be stressed enough to make sure that these fields are accurate and consistent throughout your website and directory listings.

Structured markup, also called Schema markup, is code that you have on your website that tells search engines how your site should appear in search results.

This makes your search results more user-friendly.

This resource from Kissmetrics tells you step-by-step how you can add structured markup data to your website.

Customer Reviews Matter

Not only can customer reviews influence rankings, they can also influence a customer’s decision to buy. Over 62% of buyers consider online reviews to be important or very important when finding a local business.

You can ask your customers to leave reviews on Google and Facebook. Also, search for existing reviews and respond to them. You’ll show that you care about your business and your customers.

Let’s say you were looking up a pest control service in Concord, North Carolina. So you search for pest control service reviews near concord nc.

You find a company that you may not be familiar with, but you decide to call based on a number of positive reviews.

Rank Images and Videos

One overlooked aspect of local search is to try to rank videos and images for keywords. This is probably one of the easiest local SEO solutions.

• A few easy tips to rank images already on your website are:
• Make sure the image is related to the webpage.
• The image file name should be changed from IMG_4323425 to something related to the keyword.
• The higher the image is on your page, the better chance it has to rank.
• Fill in the alt-text and description of the image. Preferably with your keywords, but don’t keyword stuff.

This is one way to help you rank in local search results that your competition probably isn’t doing.

Get Listed

Online directories are easy to miss as far as local SEO solutions go. You can help your local search results by making sure your business is listed in the main online search directories; such as Yelp, Citysearch, and MerchantCircle and YP.com.

Does that mean that you should submit your website to every directory? Absolutely not. Remember the earlier discussion regarding backlinks: Quantity does not mean quality.

When you list your site, pick the main directories above and include BingPlaces.

If you’re a member of business organization or chamber of commerce, take advantage of your membership and make sure you’re listed in their business directory.

It’s very important to make sure that your listings are accurate and consistent. If you have listings all over the place with old addresses or phone numbers, you’re diluting the potential impact of your search results.

Don’t Discount Social Media

Social media influencers tend to agree that social media remains one of the top local SEO solutions.

It’s still debatable whether social media has a direct impact on search results, but social media does help in other ways.

Social media networks are great for backlinks. They also have the potential to create conversation around your company. This sends social signals to Google’s algorithm.

The more positive the social signal, the more likely you’ll rank higher.

Finding Local SEO Solutions Can Be Easy

As you can see, there are at least a dozen ways you can improve your local search results. If you make these suggested changes, you should start to see your search results improve.

You might be ready to hand some of those tasks off to someone else.

At ArticleCity, our goal is to help you get your content seen so your website can appear in search results.

Sign up for your free account today for the latest marketing and local SEO solutions.