Retail fulfillment has become increasingly complex. A distribution center that once primarily shipped cartons to stores may now be expected to replenish those same stores, fulfill thousands of individual e-commerce orders, process returns, support next-day delivery promises, and absorb major seasonal peaks from the same inventory.
At the same time, product assortments are expanding. An apparel company may stock thousands of combinations of styles, colors, and sizes. An electronics retailer may carry everything from cables and phone accessories to laptops and gaming equipment. Sporting goods retailers can have similarly broad assortments spanning apparel, footwear, equipment, and accessories.
This combination of SKU growth, smaller orders, faster delivery expectations, and multiple fulfillment channels is one reason AutoStore has become widely used in retail. Here's more on what is AutoStore and how it works.
The library of AutoStore projects within the retail industry includes implementations across apparel, footwear, sporting goods, consumer electronics, outdoor products, beauty and fragrance, general e-commerce, tools, books, and other consumer goods.
Apparel and footwear operations can become SKU-intensive very quickly. One product may exist in multiple styles, colors, sizes, fits, or seasonal variations, creating thousands of individual SKUs even when the underlying product assortment appears relatively straightforward. At the same time, e-commerce shifts much of that inventory toward each-picking. Instead of moving cases of shirts or shoes to a store, fulfillment employees may need to retrieve a single size and color for an individual customer order.
The workflows surrounding the system can also be more complex than a straightforward pick-and-ship operation. Returns are particularly important in apparel and footwear, and some businesses perform personalization, decoration, kitting, or other value-added services after an item is picked.
The AutoStore at Cutter & Buck showcases this complexity. Its fulfillment operation handles both blank and customized apparel. Standard products can move from AutoStore toward packing and shipping, while customized garments are routed into an embroidery workflow before they are completed and shipped. The example illustrates an important consideration for fashion retailers: system design has to account not only for how an item is stored and picked, but how the inventory needs to be routed once its picked.
Other recent projects also show how growth can push apparel retailers toward automation. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. launched AutoStore in conjunction with its logistics partner, Bleckmann, in order to increase capacity, improve efficiency, pick orders faster, ship sooner, and reduce delivery times.
Footwear creates its own challenges. Shoe boxes consume considerably more Bin volume than many folded garments while still creating large numbers of SKUs through size and color variations. At Footshop, for example, an AutoStore system stores thousands of footwear SKUs in 52,600 Bins, with as many as eight shoe boxes in a Bin. The example highlights why Bin utilization and picking accuracy can become especially important in footwear.
Sporting goods and outdoor retailers often have a different challenge where the assortment itself can be extremely diverse. The same retailer may carry apparel, footwear, small accessories, replacement parts, equipment, and oversized products.
Sport Conrad provides a useful example. The international outdoor and winter sports retailer uses an AutoStore system for approximately 65% of its items, including sportswear, climbing harnesses, backpacks, helmets, and shoes. The remaining assortment stays outside the system. Rather than asking whether the retailer as a whole is a fit for AutoStore, the project illustrates a more useful question: Which portion of the assortment creates the strongest automation opportunity?
That distinction matters for retailers with mixed inventory. AutoStore can handle the small-item and each-pick portion of an operation while oversized merchandise, full cases, or other products remain in pallet rack, shelving, or another storage system. Product dimensions, inventory depth, velocity, and order frequency all influence where that dividing line should fall.
Consumer electronics retailers can manage large assortments of relatively small products, particularly when accessories are included. On top of phones and tablets, the electronics retailers typically also sell things like cases, screen protectors, chargers, cables, headphones, and similar products can create thousands of SKUs as new devices and models enter the market.
SkalHuset.se provides one example from the mobile accessories market. The Swedish e-commerce retailer carries more than 20,000 unique stocked items and serves customers across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Since launching in 2011, the company says it has fulfilled more than two million orders.
As order volumes grew, SkalHuset worked with Kardex to automate fulfillment and consolidate inventory that had previously been spread across multiple locations into a single warehouse. AutoStore now supports the picking operation from that centralized inventory, with the system designed to expand as order volumes grow.
Depending on the products being stored, inventory control can also become more complex. Cosmetics and personal care products may need to be managed by lot or batch, expiration or shelf-life date, or specific stock rotation rules. If a product is recalled, for example, the operation needs to identify the affected inventory rather than simply knowing that a particular SKU is available. These requirements influence the WMS and inventory logic surrounding AutoStore, not just the physical storage system.
PARSA Beauty illustrates that complexity. The company offers more than 5,000 items, works with more than 100 trading partners, and operates across roughly 40 countries. As assortment diversity and international goods flows increased, PARSA Beauty modernized its logistics operation with SAP S/4HANA, Embedded EWM, and an AutoStore system from Kardex.
The surrounding workflow is particularly relevant for retailers evaluating automation. SAP EWM manages processes including batches, packaging units, resource planning, and returns, while AutoStore begins preparing the following day's orders overnight. At the picking stations, employees can work on as many as 16 orders simultaneously. The operation handles approximately 30,000 to 40,000 picks per day and can reach up to 45,000 during peak periods.
PARSA Beauty is a good reminder that the retail automation question is not simply how many products can fit into AutoStore. Inventory rules, order profiles, software, returns, and the way work is released to operators all have to function together.
Books, hobbies, toys, and other specialty retail categories can create another version of the SKU challenge. Assortments may contain a very large number of individual products with dramatically different demand profiles. Some sell continuously, while others form the long tail of inventory that still needs to remain available when a customer orders it.
A large book retailer, Thalia, shows what this can look like at large omnichannel scale. Rhenus Logistics operates fulfillment for the Thalia's more than 500 bookstores across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as well as its growing e-commerce business. As order volumes increased, conventional processes involving long walking distances reached their limits. Rhenus leveraged an AutoStore system that has approximately 240,000 Bins and 530 Robots to support Thalia's combined store and e-commerce demand. The system can deliver approximately 13,100 Bin presentations per hour within an 8,000-square-meter footprint.
The Thalia example is also useful because today's bookseller is not necessarily storing only books. The operation is designed to support a broader merchandise assortment as the retailer grows, illustrating how specialty retailers can use automation to accommodate both e-commerce expansion and category expansion without treating the two as separate challenges.
Hobby e-commerce presents a different operational problem. Hobbii, a yarn retailer shipping to more than 80 countries through 15 localized webshops, previously relied on manual batch picking that made it difficult to prioritize orders around carrier pickup times. Its AutoStore operation now combines picking and packing into a more streamlined flow and can dynamically prioritize orders for upcoming departures. During peaks, the facility can operate around the clock and process up to 16,500 orders in 24 hours.
That distinction is important: for e-commerce retailers, faster picking is only useful if the right orders are completed in time to leave the building. Order sequencing, carrier cutoffs, packing, and downstream capacity can matter just as much as the speed of the storage system itself.
This model can be particularly relevant for apparel, lifestyle, and e-commerce brands that need automated fulfillment capacity without building an automation operation entirely in-house. A 3PL may use AutoStore as part of a shared fulfillment infrastructure while maintaining separate inventory, business rules, and service requirements for different retail clients.
The A&F Co. project in Columbus is one example of this model: Bleckmann is A&F Co.'s logistics partner, while Kardex is involved in the AutoStore automation. Thalia provides another variation, with Rhenus operating the highly automated fulfillment center on behalf of the retailer. These projects show that "using AutoStore" does not always mean a retailer directly owns and operates the Grid.
Across all of these retail verticals, the product category is only part of the equation. Inventory profile, product dimensions, SKU count, order-line volume, units per order line, peak demand, fulfillment channels, software requirements, and expected growth ultimately determine how AutoStore should fit into the operation.
Across the case studies, we see several challenges appear repeatedly, and we can start to understand why retail automation is becoming more and more prevalent.
Traditional retail distribution was heavily oriented toward moving cartons or pallets from distribution centers to stores. E-commerce changes the unit of work from cartons and pallets to individual units. AutoStore can concentrate those each-pick SKUs into a dense goods-to-person environment while leaving case and pallet flows elsewhere in the facility.
SKU growth creates the ever-present and ever-growing challenge of space. There's never enough space. And adding more products to conventional shelving generally means adding more shelving, more aisles, more travel, or eventually more warehouse space.
AutoStore takes a different approach by stacking Bins vertically in a dense Grid and eliminating storage aisles within that Grid. It can also create room for packing, value-added services, returns processing, sortation, shipping, or future automation.
Fulfillment speed has become part of the retail customer experience.
The operational question is no longer simply how many lines can be picked per hour. Retailers also need to ask how late they can accept an order and still make the carrier cutoff, whether orders can ship the same day, and how quickly inventory can move from storage through picking, packing, and dispatch.
Few industries experience variability like retail. Black Friday, holiday shopping, promotions, product launches, and seasonal changes can cause daily volumes to multiply within a very short period. Building a manual operation around peak volume often means maintaining space and labor that may be unnecessary for much of the year. AutoStore can help retailers absorb higher peak volumes without relying as heavily on adding temporary labor.
In conventional person-to-goods picking, a significant portion of an operator's day can be spent walking between storage locations. AutoStore changes that workflow by delivering inventory Bins to stationary workstations.
For retailers, this can improve productivity while also reducing the dependence on adding large numbers of pickers during peak periods. It can also simplify the physical workflow for employees by reducing travel throughout the warehouse.
One of the biggest mistakes when thinking about retail automation is treating e-commerce as an isolated workflow and not looking at the overall omnichannel fulfillment strategy.
The same distribution center may need to support:
The challenge becomes determining how those flows should interact.
As we've seen in the examples above, AutoStore can support a broader distribution strategy serving both stores and e-commerce rather than creating completely separate inventory infrastructure for each channel.
Retail automation therefore needs to answer a larger question: Which inventory should be available to which channel, when, and in what sequence? The physical AutoStore system is only one part of that decision.
The Grid and Robots get much of the attention, but a successful retail AutoStore operation is ultimately a series of connected processes.
Products first have to get into AutoStore.
The AutoStore integrator needs to determine how inbound cartons are received, decanted, identified, and placed into Bins. They also need a strategy for keeping enough inventory available inside the Grid without constantly replenishing fast-moving products.
That can become particularly important in retail. Fashion inventory may arrive in large seasonal waves. Promotional products can quickly shift from slow-moving to high-volume. Some retailers may maintain reserve cases or pallets outside AutoStore and replenish the Grid as needed.
Not everything a retailer sells necessarily belongs in the system.
Oversized merchandise, full pallets, efficient full-case flows, or products with unusual handling requirements may remain elsewhere in the facility. The strongest business case can come from automating the portion of inventory creating the greatest space, travel, or each-picking constraint rather than trying to force the entire assortment into one technology.
This is also where Bin strategy matters. Multiple small SKUs can potentially share a subdivided Bin, while larger products may require more of the available cube. Maximizing the use of space within each Bin can reduce the number of Bins and Grid space required.
An order that must make a carrier departure in two hours should not necessarily be treated the same as an order scheduled to ship tomorrow. Store replenishment may have another priority altogether.
The software layer around AutoStore therefore matters. Order release can account for promised delivery dates, carrier cutoffs, shipping method, inventory availability, downstream capacity, and other business rules.
Retailers should also evaluate whether orders should be picked individually or grouped into batches. At sufficient volume, intelligently grouping work can reduce unnecessary system activity and improve the flow between AutoStore and downstream fulfillment processes. Learn how batching strategies work within AutoStore.
The fastest possible AutoStore pick does little good if the order sits downstream waiting to be consolidated or packed.
It's important to consider the entire path from Bin presentation through shipment. Should operators pick directly into shipping cartons? Should several orders be batch picked and sorted afterward? Are put walls, conveyors, cartonization software, automated packaging, print-and-apply equipment, or sortation involved?
The types of AutoStore Ports (workstations) that are used with the system directly impact downstream processes.This is why AutoStore should be designed as part of a fulfillment system rather than evaluated as an isolated piece of equipment.
Retailers frequently perform additional work between picking and shipping. Products may need to be personalized, bundled, gift wrapped, labeled, kitted, inspected, or otherwise modified.
Cutter & Buck provides a particularly relevant example because its AutoStore system was implemented by Kardex. The apparel company's fulfillment operation handles both blank garments and customized products. Blank orders can move toward packing and shipping, while decorated orders are routed into an embroidery workflow. Kardex FulfillX helps manage the different order types so work is directed to the appropriate Ports. Cutter & Buck reports that some standard e-commerce orders can move from receipt through picking and packing in less than 10 minutes, while customized garments can ship in about 25 hours.
Store replenishment has different requirements than e-commerce fulfillment. Instead of sending one or two units to one consumer, the retailer may be assembling totes containing products for an entire store, department, or aisle.
In one retail AutoStore implementation, items are organized into clearly identified totes for different areas of the store, allowing employees to move merchandise more directly to the appropriate location.
Retailers want to get returned merchandise back into saleable inventory as soon as possible, but returns may require inspection, grading, repackaging, relabeling, refurbishment, or routing to an alternate inventory disposition before it can re-enter AutoStore.
Fashion retailer, Otrium, provides an example of how returns can become a more complex fulfillment workflow. Through its logistics partner, Bleckmann, damaged returns can be inspected, repaired or refurbished, and returned to sellable inventory. During a 2023 pilot, more than 1,000 garments, shoes, and accessories were refurbished each month, and 70% of the renewed inventory sold within seven weeks.
For retailers, the value of automation is often less about the pick rate itself and more about what faster, denser fulfillment makes possible.
Carry more assortment without continually adding space. Retailers can add new styles, sizes, colors, accessories, or long-tail SKUs without requiring a proportional increase in shelving and walking space.
Push e-commerce order cutoffs later. Faster movement from storage to packing can give retailers more time to accept orders and still make carrier departures, supporting next-day and, in some networks, same-day delivery.
Handle retail peaks without building the entire operation around peak. Black Friday, holidays, promotions, and seasonal changes can create volumes far above an average day. A scalable automation strategy can provide additional capacity without relying entirely on temporary labor.
Use inventory across more than one channel. AutoStore can support e-commerce orders and store replenishment from the same inventory environment, rather than requiring completely separate fulfillment operations.
Keep inventory available to sell. Accuracy matters differently in omnichannel retail because inventory shown online may be promised to a customer immediately. Better inventory control can reduce situations where the system says an item is available but it cannot actually be fulfilled.
Grow without continually redesigning fulfillment. New SKUs, new markets, e-commerce growth, and additional channels all put pressure on the DC. An expandable system gives retailers another way to add capacity as the business changes.
No.
A company's industry alone is not enough to determine whether AutoStore is the right automation technology.
A retailer evaluating AutoStore should consider questions such as:
That last question may be the most important.
Retailers rarely begin evaluating automation because everything is working perfectly. There is usually a constraint somewhere: space, picking, labor, accuracy, throughput, replenishment, shipping cut-offs, or an inability to accommodate future growth. Understanding that constraint is the starting point for determining what role AutoStore should play.
System size and design also directly influence investment. The number of Bins, Robots, Ports, software requirements, and surrounding automation can all affect how much an AutoStore system costs. For retailers building a business case, cost should be evaluated alongside the space, labor, throughput, and growth constraints the system is intended to address.
Looking across retail AutoStore implementations, the common denominator is not a particular product.
It is complexity.
Retailers are being asked to manage more SKUs, more each-picking, more sales channels, shorter delivery windows, greater peak variability, and higher customer expectations within fulfillment operations that were often designed for a much simpler retail model.
AutoStore can solve an important part of that equation by bringing inventory to operators instead of sending operators to inventory. But the most successful applications go beyond the Grid and determine how the technology fits into the overall retail logistics strategy.
If you're considering AutoStore for your retail business, here's a guide on how to choose the right AutoStore integration partner. The guide includes 10 questions you should be asking each integration contender so that you can understand their expertise and working style.