E-Commerce by PVS

The family-run SIEMES Group from Mönchengladbach, with its approx. 5,000 employees, is considered one of the largest German specialist shoe retailers. The group can look back on more than 80 years of company history. Under the motto “Big Brands – Small Prices”, the group offers an extensive range of brand-name shoes for the whole family.

In addition to the 183 branches, the company’s e-shop has become an important distribution channel. When it comes to e-commerce, Siemes has been relying on the fulfilment expertise of PVS Europe since 2010. The logistics professionals take care of orders, fulfilment and returns for the online store www.schuhcenter.de. In addition to warehousing and shipping, they also support the shoe retailer with customer care and finance services.

If an expert for brand-name shoes wants to prevail in e-commerce against big players like Amazon, Zalando or Otto, it must offer its customers fast deliveries and perfect end-customer service. Since Siemes wanted to further perfect its service and at the same time more closely intertwine its stationary trade with its online shop schuhcenter.de, the group launched a tender. With PVS Europe, Siemes found a fulfilment partner that meets the high service requirements and at the same time is able to flexibly scale its capacities several times a year for cross-channel marketing campaigns such as brochure mailings.

Fulfilment solutions that grow with you

PVS Europe now processes up to 50,000 orders a month for schuhcenter.de. Numerous sales and marketing campaigns ensure high sales figures. In addition to Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas, Siemes sends out its online newsletter with special offers and leaflets to several million households nationwide up to ten times a year. Although the latter primarily promote branch sales, exclusive online articles are also an integral part of these brochures.

“Through multi-shift operations, weekend work and additional warehouse capacity, PVS Europe ensures that we can guarantee same-day dispatch for campaigns,” explains Robert Flanz, Head of E-Commerce at Siemes. The increased workload in returns processing as well as mail and telephone traffic during this time is also planned for, ensuring that the agreed service levels are maintained throughout.

Customer care for high customer loyalty

“Whether it’s taking orders by phone, questions about the product or complaints – with the Customer Care package, PVS Europe offers its customers a high level of accessibility by phone or email. This ensures that enquiries about orders, returns, payments or complaints are dealt with promptly,” says Christian Paechter, CSO of PVS Europe. “Through fast response times, Siemes provides its online customers with a sustainable positive shopping experience,” adds Tobias Derek, Managing Director of PVS eCommerce-Services in Meckenheim.

Fast and error-free deliveries and uncomplicated returns are an essential part of the customer experience. Items ordered by 2 pm will be shipped the same day. In addition to the impressions in the shop front end, it is above all the service after the click on “order” that shapes customer engagement. Only those who do everything right here will achieve a high level of customer loyalty and be rewarded with follow-up orders.

Process returns quickly

In the case of returns, customers want their money back as soon as possible. That’s why speedy returns processing has a direct impact on customer satisfaction. PVS Europe processes around 50,000 orders a year for Siemes. Returned goods are examined by trained staff on the same day and booked directly online. “Returns management is one of the success factors of schuhcenter.de. But the employees of PVS Europe also prevent customers from trying to defraud us by checking returns professionally. For example, when they want to return counterfeit brand-name shoes,” says Robert Flanz.

PVS Europe also takes over the accounts receivable accounting for the e-shop. Thanks to the connection to Siemes financial accounting, the sub-ledger accounting flows directly into the general ledger accounting at the end of the month. Payment processing, including various payment methods, is also handled by the fulfilment experts.

Digital processes and dynamic warehousing

“PVS Europe has constantly developed both the storage capacity and the detailed processes and technology and adapted them dynamically to our requirements and key figures,” says Tobias Derek. All processes are handled digitally using modern information technologies. Thanks to an intelligent ERP system, detailed processes can also be changed flexibly at peak times to ensure prompt dispatch.

Over the past twelve years, schuhcenter.de has grown continuously and with it the need for storage space. Today, PVS Europe stocks an average of 180,000 shoes in a 6,000 square metre multi-client centre according to the principle of chaotic warehousing. With this dynamic process, items do not have a fixed storage location, but are stored where something is free at the moment. In this manner, the warehouse can be stocked more quickly and empty spaces are avoided. The location of the goods is noted in PVS’s own merchandise management system.

Thanks to real-time data transfer, online orders are immediately available in the fulfilment software. Here, customer orders are dispatched via an upstream two-stage picking process. The merchandise management system determines the position of the ordered goods and creates route-optimised digital picking lists for the staff. To keep working distances as short as possible, the employees work in firmly assigned zones.

When a warehouse worker picks an item from the shelf, he scans the storage compartment barcode attached to the compartment as well as the barcode of the shoe box and places the picked items in corresponding trays. When they have collected all the articles of their commission order, the tubs are conveyed to an order sorter. In a second step, the picked items are assigned to specific individual orders at the designated order sorter using a “put-to-light” methodology. This procedure guarantees fast processing and prevents possible picking errors.

With this high level of automation, PVS Siemes offers real-time access to stocks, return rates, customer care requests and accounts receivable. The shoe specialists can thus fine-tune their sales and marketing campaigns at any time or react quickly in case of problems.

Growing together

“We have found the right partner for our fulfilment in PVS Europe, which supports us flexibly over and over again. Be it price labelling or additional storage options for our branches – we know that the PVS team will find suitable solutions for us,” explains Robert Flanz. “Especially late deliveries, broken goods or sending the wrong items can ruin years of work building up an e-shop. Because the best shop front-end is useless without perfect logistics service. Together with PVS Europe, we can offer our customers a positive customer experience from purchase to delivery.”

PVS Europe has accompanied schuhcenter.de on its path to success in recent years. With its technical infrastructure and specialist staff, the fulfilment expert is well equipped for further expansion.