Toupret

TOUPRET, leader in fillers for professional painters and decorators, building and construction professionals and DIY enthusiasts.

RE-BRANDING

2021 sees a step change in the growth of Toupret in the UK with a complete re-branding of their entire product range and entry into new customers such as Wickes and Travis Perkins to add to their existing portfolio including Screwfix, Toolstation, PPG, Dulux Trade Centres, Crown, Brewers as well as smaller independent outlets.

WAREHOUSING & DISTRIBUTION

To facilitate the stock build of their new branded range to hold until the launch, while continuing to supply their old product range, we had to accommodate a significant uplift in pallet storage to hold both old and new range simultaneously. We invested over £80k in new racking installation in Q1 to create the space to hold the new range until product launch at the start of Q2.

This increased our inbound pallets from an average of 250 plts / month in January and February to over 900 pallets received in March, subsequently increasing our pallets in storage from 900 pallets to over 2,000 pallets. Our pick quantities also increased from an average of 3,000 cases / wk to nearly 4,500 average for April, and now settled at approx. 3,800 / wk.

By the end of May all customers had transitioned onto the new range with the exception of Screwfix and Toolstation, who will continue to order and run down the old range until September when they will also then move across to start ordering the new range.

The new racking area also gave us the space and scope to be innovative with the system and physical set up of our pick faces, setting up double deep and, in some cases double wide pick faces. Using a customer forecast by product we were able to create pick faces of varying sizes to enable as a minimum, a full days’ picking volume direct from pick faces without the need for any replenishment during the picking process. If replenishment is required, then it can be replenished from the aisle behind meaning the picking can continue without interruption. This also enables us to support peaks in volumes with additional resource from elsewhere in the operation without needing them to be forklift trained.

RETAIL MARKETING OPERATION

To support the launch of the new branding, the Toupret Marketing department asked us to implement a bespoke, non-warehouse environment, samples and marketing operation. They are being much more pro-active in the marketing of the new branded products running competitions in trade magazines and sending samples and merchandise out to journalists in the trade, so wanted us to operate a small, very customer focused area where items are individually packaged with accompanying letters from Toupret presenting a very personalised service offering.

We were able to convert an area in our Freebournes Road site, previously used on another contracts sampling operation, into a dedicated, more retail-based environment for this Marketing operation.

The customer was delighted with the result and with the obvious care and pride taken by the team when setting up the products in their new area.

TESTIMONIAL

It has been a very busy few months for the Toupret Contract with a great team effort to deliver all the changes and support our customer with their increased levels of service they are providing to their customers. Special note goes to Kirsty Eaves, Warehouse Office Manager, and Rob Lucas, Warehouse Team Leader, who have worked very closely to coordinate their teams’ efforts to set up and implement the new product range and the Marketing operation and thank you to Hannah Birchall from Stoke Depot for the system and physical support during implementation.

This has really helped to cement our relationship with our customer over recent months, and we look forward to supporting their distribution and growth for years to come.

Mike Dart, Toupret UK’s Commercial Logistics Manager has re-enforced this, saying “the Simarco Team have done an excellent job in setting up, receiving and shipping our new product range. It’s made a refreshing change to work with a flexible logistics provider”.