01732 759725 08 DISTRIBUTION products acquired through Exertis. While dropship might be a small part of the distributor’s existing business it is a good example of how the company is investing in and expanding its operations in response to changes in the way people buy and sell products, epitomised by the rise of stock-less e-tailers with extended product portfolios and growing demand from vendors to be able to reach customers through direct-to-consumer platforms. These demands clearly require very different capabilities to those provided by the traditional distribution model in which a distributor takes a vendor’s product and ships it to resellers/retailers who then service the end user. So that it can continue to provide ‘reach, simplification and leverage’ for partners in this new distribution landscape, Exertis has invested £5 million in a selfserve e-commerce platform with better integration, ease of use, pricing and product breadth. The platform is already being used by 40% of Exertis’s B2B customers and is enjoying sales growth of 400%. The technology behind the platform also empowers vendors to sell directly to end user customers, with dropship carried out by Exertis. Exertis UK Chief Executive Tim Griffin points out that as well as better serving the needs of customers, this enables vendors to discover more about their customers. “One of the challenges that vendors have in a world where they are disintermediated, either through a retailer or through an e-commerce platform, is that they don’t know who their end user customers are. Enabling them to have their own direct-to-consumer websites lets us feed back data on their customers, which they then own.” To make the most of its new systems and services and to provide capacity for future growth, Exertis has invested £25 million in automation at its Burnley Bridge NDC, including a four-storey Pick Tower for the faster picking and packing of orders. Described by Griffin as ‘the jewel in the crown’ of its £90 million distribution centre, the Pick Tower gives retailers and resellers the ability to consolidate multiple items, including hardware and software products, in the same package and, in doing so, differentiate themselves in a competitive market through the dynamic bundling of products. Referencing Exertis Ztorm, a digital distributor of gaming and software online and via gift cards, Chief Portfolio Officer Phil Turner adds: “We have the asset base and the portfolio base within our business to enables us to put hardware and software together. That’s key for us. We are about to go live with a digital bundle Next-day delivery is one of the wonders of modern life, and one that it is all too easy to take for granted. In fact, many different processes – supported by a great deal of investment – are involved from the moment the customer goes online and clicks ‘buy’ to the point the courier places the package in their hands the following day. Exertis, the UK brand of technology distributor DCC Technology, one of three divisions of the £22 billion turnover DCC Group, has made multi-million-pound investments in a new SAP system (now fully functioning, with all teething problems resolved), an e-commerce platform and warehouse automation to enable it to deliver items to end user customers on behalf of its clients, known as dropship, with a successful e-commerce next-day delivery rate of 99.56%. With 1.8 million orders to 1.3 million homes, generating £212 million in annual revenue, dropship currently makes up around 10% of the 17 million units shipped annually from the NDC. However, this side of the business has been growing fast – at around 25% – and Exertis expects volumes to double in 2024 as it forms new partnerships with vendors and retailers. Changing expectations Next day ‘dropship’ on behalf of Exertis customers such as AO, Argos, The Very Group, Ebuyer, Microsoft Store and John Lewis & Partners is just one of the services provided by the company’s National Distribution Centre (NDC) in Burnley Bridge, alongside bulk deliveries to resellers’ and retailers’ own distribution centres (DCs) and fulfilment centres (FCs), plus third party logistics (3PL) services like returns processing for vendors and resellers (including a used device collection and resale service for large estate technology upgrades). There is also a Vendor Flex option, which allows businesses like Amazon, for example, to run their own warehouse operations within the NDC to shorten their supply chains and accelerate time to market for Huge investment in its National Distribution Centre in Burnley Bridge is enabling Exertis to offer retailers, resellers and vendors an expanded range of services including dropship direct to end user customers In the fast lane
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