Photo: Gap Inc.
Gap has formed a partnership with Ware2Go, a UPS-owned digital platform that matches merchants with on-demand available warehouse space and fulfillment services. The service is designed to help small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that are seeking to move away from owned warehouses toward co-warehousing partnerships.
The Ware2Go partnership accelerates Gap’s GPS Platform Services division, which was launched last August and encourages retailers to take advantage of the logistics capabilities of the second largest apparel e-commerce player in the U.S. for next-day and two-day shipping, short-term storage and cross-docking. The business has so far only worked with a few larger national brands.
“We want to monetize what we have built. We have made some large strategic investments over the years and have a lot of capability,” Kevin Kuntz, head of global logistics fulfillment at Gap, told WWD.
The collaboration promises to let smaller brands and retailers outsource logistics and fulfillment to the robotics-driven warehouses run by Ware2Go and Gap in a pay-as-you-go model to speed delivery. The handoff will allow SMBs to focus on their strengths, such as product development and marketing.
According to Ware2Go survey data:
- Eighty-nine percent of SMBs own and operate at least one warehouse, with 47 percent having explored more flexible warehouse strategies over the last two years. Cost savings, reduced time spent on operations and access to better technology were cited as top benefits.
- Ninety percent of SMBs stated they would be open to the idea of sharing a warehouse with another retail brand and outsourcing fulfillment to that retailer as a partner.
- UPS-Owned Ware2Go And Gap Inc. Platform Services Collaborate To Offer Enterprise-Level Fulfillment Capability To SMBs – Gap
- Gap Inc. Opens Up Supply Chain to SMBs – WWD
- Gap Inc. Wants to Outsource Warehousing for SMBs – Sourcing Journal
- Do retailers face too many conflicts as they move into logistics services? – RetailWire