With its distribution center lease set to expire and facing rising West Coast leasing costs, women’s fashion brand Cabi Clothing (cabi) embarked on a DC relocation journey in early 2024 that yielded big results in short order. In just two years, the California-based fashion business has retooled its distribution and delivery processes and is now getting orders to customers nationwide and overseas faster and more efficiently than ever before.Cabi did it by moving the company’s West Coast DC to the Midwest and adding automation that has helped streamline workflows, reduce associate training time, and ease staffing constraints.The company partnered with supply chain consulting firm Alpine Supply Chain Solutions and systems integrator Systems in Motion to tackle the problem, completing a market assessment, DC relocation plan, automation analysis, and new facility opening in just 12 months, followed soon after by the implementation of automated warehouse equipment that now has the new DC—located in Indianapolis—humming along.“We came to Alpine in January of 2024 saying our lease was expiring in a year and it was time for us to do a market assessment” to determine the next steps for upgrading the fulfillment network, explains Greg Abel, cabi’s chief operating officer. “Now we are fully operational [in Indianapolis], with a hum to it.“Whether this had opened six months ago or six years ago, you wouldn’t know the difference.”GROWING PAINSCabi does business through independent sellers, called stylists, who work with clients across a mix of in-home and online experiences—primarily via hosted gatherings called “shows.” The…
