Sainsbury's cutting costs over the last 50 metres of retail

In retail logistics the quest is to continually refine the costs and methods of moving products from supplier through to the consumer, particularly over the 50 metres separating the delivery dock from the point-of-sale.

UK-based LINPAC Group is at the forefront of providing retail logistics solutions, two recent examples being a plastic merchandising dolly and a small footprint, large capacity plastic merchandising bin. LINPAC Group is represented in this country by its wholly owned subsidiary, Viscount Plastics New Zealand Limited.

The dolly was developed as the answer to the challenge from Sainsbury’s for a single base dolly that would accommodate all their supply chain requirements as well as double up as a stand alone, gondola or aisle-end merchandising unit.

Successfully proving itself on the job, the LINPAC Merchandising Dolly allows Sainsbury’s, and other retail chains, to achieve ’one-touch replenishment’ on many high volume grocery lines. Removing the need for multiple handling between supplier and customers not only cuts labour costs it also reduces the potential for product damage. 

Aislie-end use in Sainsbury's of the Linpac single base merchandising dolly.

Asda stores were among the first to use the LINPAC Maxi-Pac plastic merchandising bin which is specifically designed to take product directly from the supplier to the end user, leapfrogging intermediate handling. Their purchase by Asda was primarily to cater for the Christmas 2003 rush on potatoes. Prior to using the Maxi-Pac potatoes were delivered to Asda stores in paper sacks and decanted into bins, a process that incurred labour costs and took about 45 to 60 minutes at a time of year when the average weekly customer level in Asda stores had risen by 50%.

Viscount Plastics describe the merchandising dolly and Maxi-Pac merchandising bin as ready made retail logistics solutions that effectively negate the need for New Zealand retail to invest in trial and development.

Linpac Maxi-Pac merchandising bins in an ASDA store.