It has taken 27,870sqm at Belkin House, Express Business Park, expanding its existing Rushden fulfilment capability, and is also opening its fifth fulfilment centre, located in Unit 3, G-Park Northampton.
The 14,400sqm purpose-built Northampton site, based on the East Midlands town’s Moulton Park industrial estate, was chosen because of its ‘Golden Triangle’ location, the biggest concentration of major logistics and distribution operations in Europe.
It has good access to the M1, M40, M6 and M40, putting 90% of the population of England and Wales within reach in four hours, which Whistl said would enable it to potentially offer online retailers a later cut-off time for their customers’ orders for next-day delivery.
The depot, which will be fitted out to enable pick and pack of customer orders, has parking for 27 HGVs and has 15 dock doors and three level access points.
Alongside its expanding pick and pack and returns warehouse capability, Whistl has expanded into contact centres and providing warehouse and carrier management systems, and said it offered easy integration into retailers’ existing IT or order management systems.
The new Northampton site, which the company is in the process of moving into this month, and the Rushden facility, which was expanded in September, join Whistl’s other fulfilment centres located in Farnborough and Gateshead, giving the business over 65,000sqm fulfilment capacity across the UK.
Whistl chief executive Nick Wells said: “Through Whistl Fulfilment we are bringing our people, our operational excellence and reputation for first class customer management to medium-sized retailers who require an agile and scalable partner who can manage every aspect of the fulfilment process, from placing an order to delivery to the consumer.
“We have a range of proven flexible and customisable services available depending on the requirements of the retailer.
“We understand that fulfilment and delivery is part of the brand experience for consumers and everyone within the company is passionate about doing the best we can to ensure that we deliver on the retailers brand promise.”
Whistl entered the e-commerce fulfilment and contact centres market through the acquisition of Prism DM in 2017 and expanded its presence the following year with the acquisition of Spark Response and Spark Etail.
The £650m-turnover company, which employs around 2,000 staff and is headquartered in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, is quickly building its presence in fulfilment, working with companies including online retailers Brand Alley, Sports Pursuit, Shark Ninja and Microscooters.
