The Challenge
Based in Austin, Texas, Go! Retail Group is the parent company of several retail brands, including Go!, Calendars.com, and Attic Salt, with a growing eCommerce operation and stores in shopping malls across the United States. Go! Retail Group relied on powered conveyors and manually pushed picking carts for its eCommerce fulfillment operation. Associates pushed heavy carts while using handheld scanners, creating physical strain at a time when the available warehouse labor pool was also becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.
With significant seasonal fluctuations in order volume, the company needed a fulfillment approach that could support peak demand without relying on large increases in temporary labor. It also needed to make warehouse work easier for associates and improve employee retention.
The Solution
Go! Retail Group deployed Locus Robotics AMRs and a warehouse execution platform for its e-commerce operation, along with dashboards and reporting tools that provide greater visibility into fulfillment activity.
The Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model gives the operation the flexibility to add LocusBots as order volumes increase during peak season. The company also expanded its use of the robots beyond picking to putaway, using them to move empty totes and full cases through the facility.
The Results
After adopting Locus Robotics, Go! Retail Group reduced weekly employee turnover from 50–60% to approximately 5–8% while improving productivity and employee satisfaction. New associate training, which previously took two days, was reduced to a single sheet of instructions and approximately 15 minutes, helping new hires become productive faster during peak and throughout the year.
The operation also improved putaway performance. A process that previously took three to five hours became significantly faster with Locus Robotics, increasing daily restocking speed by approximately 40%. With the ability to scale its Locus Robot fleet as demand changes, Go! Retail Group can respond to seasonal order increases without depending solely on additional labor.
With Locus Robotics, training has been reduced from two days to a single sheet of paper and 15 minutes of training.