Dive Brief:
- Clothing retailer URBN is prioritizing its logistics capacity with a $52.5 million investment, CFO Melanie Marein-Efron said in an Aug. 21 Q2 earnings call.
- The retailer’s investments will include upgrades to its Raymore, Missouri, fulfillment center for rental clothing company Nuuly. URBN has already made multiple investments in the facility, including in automation, since it opened in Q1, Tony Coccerino, director of fulfillment at Nuuly, told sister publication Supply Chain Dive in an email.
- The recent investments in the Missouri Nuuly center are in addition to a previously announced $60 million, five-year plan to build out the facility, Coccerino said.
Dive Insight:
Nuuly, URBN’s women’s rental brand, is doubling down on automation to help the segment meet growing demand.
“We will be adding sortation technology in our Kansas City fulfillment center to automatically marry-up picked units to orders. This will go live in the first half of next year,” Coccerino said.
The additional layer of automation technology is set to enhance and accelerate Nuuly’s fulfillment processes, drive efficiencies and reduce logistics costs, he added.
The Missouri facility is Nuuly’s second fulfillment center, which opened in February to alleviate pressure from its Bristol, Pennsylvania, location.
“The Kansas City facility has enabled us to streamline and optimize our fulfillment processes, particularly for subscribers located in the South and on the West Coast. This strategic expansion has improved our service efficiency and delivery speed for these regions,” Coccerino said.
Originally launched in Q1 to service 200,000 subscribers, the Nuuly center is now focused on expanding capacity. URBN plans to build additional infrastructure to increase clothing storage and install more laundry equipment to accommodate up to 400,000 subscribers, Coccerino said.
“Our next milestone for the Raymore, MO facility is to ramp up operations to ensure that by the end of 2024 we can serve 50% of our active subscribers from the facility. We’re well on track for this,” Coccerino said.
