Sociolla Open to Work on Digital Warehousing Business Line [UPDATED]

Social Bella, parent company of omnichannel retailers Sociolla, revealed its plans to openly expand into business lines in the digital warehousing sector. The prospect of warehousing digitization is considered very bright because the process is currently still manual.

Co-founder, CEO & President of Social Bella Christoper Madiam expressed optimism about joining this new business line due to the innovation that was developed independently. in-house This has been proven to bring significant efficiencies internally Sociolla.

"So far we have built technology for our own business, but are open to exploring it as a new business model. [Users] can multiple industries with the same complexity [as Sociolla] you can use it," said Christopher on the sidelines of introducing Sociolla Warehouse in Cikupa, Tangerang, last week (27/10).

He admitted that the technology that Sociolla developed for its warehouse was completely carried out by the technology team, after going through various processes trials and errors. From his observations, no warehouse technology provider was able to answer the challenges at Sociolla.

None too benchmarking which Sociolla took from similar players, both domestically and abroad for its implementation. Finally, it was decided to build the technology from scratch. “There are even some chip "which we bought from Tokopedia," he added.

Sociolla's challenge in creating efficiency is unique and not experienced by most other digital players. As is known, the storage process for beauty products is quite complex because of their small size and large number of SKUs.

As a result, it is difficult for the picker to identify it before it enters the packaging process by the packer. Plus, each batch of product has a different expiration time. These two things are the main challenges for Sociolla, very different challenges from fashion players.

"This challenge is very complex, if there is no qualified technology it will be difficult [the duration of packaging]. We look at it from two sides, the technology team must be able to build technology that can be used easily by people user [operations team].”

Warehousing system in Sociolla

The company developed the system backend IoT-enabled digital price tags. The system is seamlessly integrated, providing a comprehensive view and real-time for inventory teams across all sales channels.

This allows them to identify nearby locations and select optimal logistics partners for online orders, provide guidance to offline stores regarding product storage, and automate tasks, such as purchase orders, payment requests, and approvals.

The flow is that every order from the Sociolla application will go to the admin system in the warehouse based on the consumer's closest location. The admin team will provide notification to the PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) held by each picker who are ready in each warehouse area.

As soon as the notification comes in, picker will accept the task of taking any customer order and the product point is anywhere. All points are notified accurately in order duration picker much more efficient. It could be that there are several orders collected by several picker because the location of the product ordered is far apart.

Every time you take one item, picker will scan the barcode from the PDA printed on each box. This notification will go directly to the admin system to indicate that the product has been successfully completed by picker. Next, at the end of the warehouse there is console area which combines all orders.

"In the box consul, there is chip which is connected to Wi-Fi and equipped with green, yellow and red lights. This color indicates whether the order is complete or not. If there are orders that have not been combined, the system will read a red light within three hours. Can be-trace also who picker assigned, tracingIt's very detailed.”

Next, after the orders are collected in one container they will be handed over to the team packer for packaging. There is a barcode mark on the package which will later be read by a smart camera to indicate which shipping company the goods should be sent based on the consumer's location, dimensions and package size. This entire process is assisted by a conveyer powered by IoT.

All packages will be collected in one container based on each type of expedition that has collaborated with Sociolla. These expeditions are usually ready to continue the process.

"When the camera has scanned the package, consumers will also get it Update "The status in the application is that the order has been processed by the expedition."

It is stated that the implementation of this technology makes the company more efficient because the process can be completed in less than an hour from the time the order is placed. Worker productivity is also much higher.

Chris explained that this system has been implemented in seven Sociolla warehouses spread throughout Indonesia. Cikupa is the location of Sociolla's largest central warehouse with an area of ​​12 thousand square meters. The warehouse has been standing since last year.

"Because this technology was developed by ourselves, we can apply it to our beauty exhibition. The concept is a mini warehouse, consumers buy goods directly from the Sociolla warehouse. The brand focuses on Branding-his."

Sociolla business model

Since operating in 2015, Social Bella has built a SHEcosystem which unites ecosystems from various industries into one integrated ecosystem and is home to more than 2.000 employees in three countries. The company has four business models. 1) SOCO, a beauty superapp, has become a forum for beauty enthusiasts and communities to share reviews and insights about beauty products. SOCO has nearly 3 million reviews covering approximately 36.000 products.

2) Beauty Journal, online media for beauty and lifestyle with O2O marketing services from upstream to downstream, 3) Sociolla, omnichannel retailers for beauty and personal care products. Now Sociolla outlets are spread across 55 stores spread across 35 cities in Indonesia and 12 outlets in four cities in Vietnam. Apart from being retailer, Sociolla is also working on the B2B segment by becoming a retailer for product distribution to modern and traditional stores. 4) Purple, an ecosystem built by mothers for mothers with the first omnichannel store opening in 2022.

The company also brings local beauty brands to expand into Southeast Asia. So far there have been three brands, namely Esqa, Carasun, and Avoskin, which have been launched into Vietnam.

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*) We have made a minor correction to the article title