Sporting Goods Retail Distribution

Many facilities handling sporting goods rely on manual or goods-to-person workflows requiring ergonomic and labor-optimized design. These distribution centers (DCs) must contend with seasonal volume spikes, employee fatigue, and difficulty staffing facilities in competitive labor markets. Let DCS engineer a system that boosts labor productivity, utilization, and ergonomics to increase your workforce’s efficiency while reducing injury risks.

SKU count continues to climb as brands differentiate through size, color, feature, and activity-specific gear. Without real-time data and optimized slotting, facilities risk fulfillment delays and lost sales—especially when omnichannel operations converge with endless aisle shopping experiences. DCS can design and deploy a solution that effectively manages diverse inventory profiles and simplifies fulfillment workflows.

From apparel and footwear to oversized fitness equipment and heavy weights, the physical diversity of sporting goods makes one-size-fits-all automation impractical. While apparel SKUs can often be picked robotically, irregular, rigid, or bulky items that can confound automated systems. DCS helps distributors efficiently handle this variety with flexible conveyance solutions, storage methods, and handling processes that accommodate extremes in shape, size, and durability.

Sporting goods DCs often rely on outdated systems and software whose functionality cannot be modernized without a significant investment. These restrictions can hinder productivity and limit visibility and throughput capacity. Implementing DCS’ proprietary warehouse execution system (WES), DATUM, expands the capabilities of existing software, hardware, and controls, enhancing operational flexibility.

Many sporting goods retailers operate aging facilities built for single-channel fulfillment. Others are managing multiple DCs with overlapping SKUs, rising overhead, and poor coordination. Informed by an assets and network evaluation, DCS can update both your operations and their geographic placement to improve transportation costs and cut delivery times.