The warehouse of Le Petit Vapoteur, French electronic cigarette manufacturer

The warehouse of Le Petit Vapoteur, French electronic cigarette manufacturer

Le Petit Vapoteur's picking shelves facilitate order preparation

Le Petit Vapoteur logo

Le Petit Vapoteur, the French online shop for electronic cigarettes, has moved all its logistics to a new 3,000 m² warehouse in Tourlaville (Normandy). Mecalux has installed shelving for picking with walkways that make up a total of three floors to make the most of all the available surface area and to obtain greater storage capacity. The centre is ready to distribute between 3,000 and 5,000 orders daily.

The success of the e-cigarette

Le Petit Vapoteur is a French company specialised in the online sale of electronic cigarettes and all kinds of accessories for this product. As a business, it has not stopped growing since it was founded in 2008 in Tourlaville. It currently has more than 10 points of sale throughout France, although most of its products are purchased through its website.

Part of the success of its online business is due to the fact that orders received before noon are distributed the same day. For this, a well-organised warehouse is essential. Le Petit Vapoteur had a 700 m2 warehouse in Tourlaville, but its capacity was insufficient to house all the products and the lack of space made it difficult to store and pick orders.

With the aim of improving its logistics, the company has recently moved to a new 3,000 m2 centre very close to the previous one.

Racks with walkways for Le Petit Vapoteur

“Although we had more space than our previous warehouse, the space in our current warehouse was still limited and we wanted to make the most of it,” explains Samuel Simon, Logistics Manager at Le Petit Vapoteur. The company wanted to be prepared for the expansion of its business and be able to accommodate a larger number of products.

After studying its needs, Mecalux has installed 7.3 m high picking shelves with walkways that comprise a total of three levels. According to Samuel Simon, "we opted for this solution because it was less expensive than building another floor in the warehouse.” In total, Le Petit Vapoteur can manage around 5,500 different SKUs. The shelves offer direct access, which facilitates the handling of the goods. They are very versatile solutions, as they have add-ons that make it possible to store SKUs of different sizes (from larger to smaller).

Goods must be correctly organised in the warehouse from the moment they are received to speed up picking. Every day, between 5 and 40 pallets arrive from Europe (Italy, Germany, England and France), the United States and China. Operators then separate electronic cigarettes to one side, and liquids to the other (also, differentiating brands and perfumes).

The warehouse is divided in such a way that certain products are deposited on each floor and a specific number of operators is assigned there, which may vary depending on the demand and the quantity of orders to be prepared. As a general rule, between 3,000 and 5,000 orders per day are distributed, each consisting of seven or eight lines.

Samuel Simon - Logistics Manager at Le Petit Vapoteur
“The Mecalux technical team has offered us a flexible solution that adapts to our needs. Firstly, we have increased our storage capacity and secondly, we have speeded up order picking.”

Advantages for Le Petit Vapoteur

  • Efficient picking: good organisation of the goods and classifying products with similar characteristics in the same area, allows optimising of operator movements and speeds up the preparation of between 3,000 and 5,000 daily orders.
  • Direct access to products: this is essential to facilitate storage and order preparation, as operators only have to arrive to the locations to slot or extract the products.
  • Maximum use of space: shelves with walkways optimise the height of the warehouse to increase storage capacity.
The warehouse of Le Petit Vapoteur
Racking height: 7.3 m
No. picked orders: 3,000 - 5,000 orders/day

Products used in this project

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