Cotton On, the Australian retailer that first made its African foray a decade ago when it launched in South Africa, just unveiled its brand new headquarters and distribution warehouse in the country, just outside Johannesburg.

The retail group invested R300 million in the 22,000m2 new build in Midrand, situated just a kilometre from its Mall of Africa store, which is also its largest Cotton On store worldwide. It has grey water harvesting systems, a 200 kWp solar power plant, LED lighting, and proximity sensors that help mitigate energy usage.

The company said an additional 50% of the space would be used for future eCommerce processing.

The warehouse is built to process online orders more efficiently and at a much quicker rate than at its previous 12,000m2 Pomona warehouse in Kempton Park.  Its new home has the capacity, Cotton On says, to process as many as 6,000 e-commerce orders per day and 200,000 units of stock to its retail network. 

The new distribution centre features 11.5m high vertical columns with very narrow aisles or VNAs with a wideness of 1.6m. The aisles are equipped with guard rails fixed to the ground, which help deactivate forklift steering while operating within the aisles. This allows the more efficient, faster, and safer moving of stock.

The forklift cabs are named after some of the group’s highest-selling stores in different countries, such as Bondi in Australia, Airport Junction in Botswana, Mall of Africa, and V&A in South Africa.

It has a multi-level mezzanine with a unitised picking system for its store, wholesale, and eCommerce orders. 

Once products are picked from the mezzanine, they are placed in pick boxes, essentially a customer’s order. They then get sent down a conveyor belt to a robotic machine that moves the orders to the packing tables, where the order is packed in a box.