Furniture and mattress retailer Raymour & Flanigan wants to reduce manual processes in its warehouses and upgrade the technology systems powering fulfillment.
Celebrating its 75th anniversary last year, the company partnered with Körber, leveraging the supply chain technology company’s warehouse management system (WMS) to unlock warehouse improvements specifically aimed at greater order accuracy, speed and customer fulfillment.
“At Raymour & Flanigan, we believe our people are our greatest asset, and when we began working with the Körber team, we felt an immediate connection to their core business values and company culture,” said Bryan Anastasi, vice president of customer care and business solutions at Raymour & Flanigan, in a statement.
The VP added that “Körber will help our associates do their jobs even more efficiently, enabling them to spend more time building customer connections. We look forward to having Körber as a partner in our future growth journey.”
Despite deploying Körber’s back-end technology, Raymour & Flanigan said the partnership well enhance the customer shopping experience. In order to support the front end of the business and the customer journey, the company said it needed a sophisticated, modern WMS and software systems in place.
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“As customer expectations grow, digitized warehouse functions become key to achieving these goals. Körber’s WMS products make this possible, encompassing the unique needs of small businesses, global enterprises, and third-party logistics providers,” said Richard Stewart, vice president software, Americas at Körber Business Area Supply Chain. “All of our customers need seamless support when it comes to delivering on their brand promises, especially in the furniture retailing industry where timeliness and accuracy are paramount, after all they are handling products that set the stage for memories that will last for generations.”
By combining the K.Motion Warehouse Management System with autonomous mobile robotics (AMR), the K.Motion Warehouse Control System (WCS), the K.Sight CLASS warehouse design and simulation software, and voice, vision and mobility systems, Körber offers business clients technology that covers all of the end-to-end supply chain—from source to doorstep delivery.
Körber isn’t the only major supply chain tech implementation for Raymour & Flanigan in recent years, as the retailer sought to bring its logistics capabilities up to speed. The company teamed with delivery and fulfillment platform provider Bringg to shore up its last-mile delivery amid surging online orders during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the months after implementing the Bringg platform, Raymour & Flanigan said in October 2021 that it achieved a 40 percent increase in delivery volumes, a 36 percent increase in deliveries per truck and a 56 percent reduction in late deliveries. Raymour & Flanigan also configured Bringg’s Driver App to meet its specific requirements, which resulted in automated driver tasks and provided customers and dispatchers with real-time visibility into order progress.
Then, this past November, Raymour & Flanigan selected enterprise resource planning (ERP) system Oracle NetSuite to facilitate customers’ cross-channel shopping experience.
Using NetSuite, the furniture seller aims to consolidate, automate and scale its operations on a single cloud business system to help meet changing consumer demands. By integrating data from different business functions, NetSuite gives retail associates a 360-degree view of customers so they can provide timely and informed customer service. Additionally, NetSuite helps Raymour & Flanigan to automate and streamline financial processes as well as inventory and customer service management.
The tech overhaul extends to front-facing capabilities like point-of-sale (POS) consumer financing, with Raymour & Flanigan partnering with multi-lender, buy now, pay later platform and network ChargeAfter in October. The ChargeAfter platform gives consumers relevant financing offers from multiple lenders during their furniture purchases based on credit type—which the company claims results in approvals for up to 85 percent of applications.
ChargeAfter connects with Raymour & Flanigan’s prime, near-prime and sub-prime lenders. During checkout, customers complete a single application and receive an approved financing offer based on their unique credit profile and needs.
ChargeAfter integrates with Raymour & Flanigan’s POS system and devices in-store, allowing customers to apply on the retailer’s customer-facing technology or a personal mobile device. The company expects it will help Raymour & Flanigan grow its financed sales by 25 percent in the coming years.
“The customer experience is tremendously important to our business, and increasingly we’re seeing that consumers want access to more personalized and flexible financing options without the stress of being declined or having their credit checked by multiple lenders,” said Chris Lloyd, head of payment solutions at Raymour & Flanigan.
With ChargeAfter, Raymour & Flanigan can gain access to real-time performance and transaction reporting as well as the ability to settle, upsell, refund and partially credit transactions.
The technology implementations are the latest upgrades for a traditional retailer with roots as a family-run business dating back to 1947. Starting from a single store in Syracuse, N.Y., Raymour & Flanigan now operates 104 showrooms across the Northeastern U.S., as well as 36 outlet stores, five clearance centers and an e-commerce business.