Automating ‘One and Done’

Today’s fashion conscious consumer is under pressure constantly to be seen in different outfits with trends such as #OOTD (Outfit of the Day). In addition, research by environmental charity Hubbub has revealed that 41% of all 18-25 year-olds feel compelled to wear a different outfit every time they go out, while one-in-six young people won’t wear an outfit again if it’s been seen on social media – a trend known as “one and done”.

These factors would seem to form an insurmountable barrier for an industry keen to improve its reputation for sustainability but clothing rental may well provide the solution.  The USA is the leader of the global online clothing rental market but the trend is quickly increasing in popularity in the UK as consumers who either do not want to spend a lot of money on clothes to wear on just one or two occasions, or just cannot afford to buy high fashion clothes, find that renting can be the perfect answer. This trend is also being driven by an increased consumer focus on sustainability issues as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Another factor in the equation – and one that is proving a major headache for online retailers – is shoppers who will purchase anything up to five items with the intention of keeping just one and returning the rest. Online retailer return rates can be as high as 50% which not only bring increased costs but some of the returns may have become soiled or damaged while being tried on and cannot be re-introduced back in to the supply chain. 

A traditional leader in the rental sector is Lanarkshire-based ACS. Already Europe’s largest formal dress hire group and widely known for its Cameron Ross brand – the company has expanded successfully from occasional hire into the frequent rental of general fashionable menswear, womenswear, childrenswear and babywear clothing. This move means ACS now works closely with retail partners such as Moss Hire, Slater, Next Formal Hire, My Wardrobe HQ, Hirestreet and Bundlee.    

ACS chief operating officer Anthony Burns says: “Today’s consumers are increasingly fashion, money and environmentally conscious and we’re seeing a significant shift from ownership to usership. Our recent Making Fashion Circular event attracted more than 60 attendees from the sector who were interested in hearing about our goal to improve the sustainability of fashion brands by reducing garment return losses. 

“Dürkopp’s equipment certainly has a key role to play and gives us higher productivity and increased reliability. It also enables us to track individual garments and sort them automatically in exact order sequence using RFID technology.”  

In addition, ACS has invested in technology which restores garments to their original condition without washing or dry cleaning. The firm’s ‘ozone chamber’ sanitises clothing by killing 100% of odour and bacteria, so enabling the garments to rejoin the retailer’s supply chain.

ACS, which is firmly focussed on extending the life of textiles, now cleans some 100,000 garments a week, holds three million items of stock and processes more than 350,000 orders a year in acting as a fulfilment centre.

{EMBED(1171800)}

To move all these items quickly and efficiently around the site, ACS turned to Dürkopp, part of the KNAPP Group, who installed an automated sortation system with a dynamic buffer to store and retrieve single items on demand and automatically. This system has proved so successful and beneficial to ACS that it has since been increased by 50%. 

When an order comes in, ACS’s warehouse management system communicates seamlessly with Dürkopp’s control technology and first checks outfit availability in the dynamic buffer. By using RFID tags for tracking, the correct garments are then released to the sortation stage.

Finally, opportunities are also opening up for KNAPP and Dürkopp in the USA. A leading business in the clothing rental sector has purchased a Dürkopp system having visited ACS’s site, seen the equipment in operation and been impressed with its capabilities.

For more information visit www.duerkopp.com