A festive opening for Ellos Group’s logistics centre

In early March, Hans Ohlsson, CEO of Ellos Group, and Joakim Hedin, CEO of Bockasjö, got together to mark the official opening of the 35,000-square-metre logistics centre in Viared outside Borås.

Per-Olof Höög, Chairman of the city council of Borås, gave the opening speech and the ‘opening song’ was sung by local siblings Lotta and Ulrik Arturén. There was also a reception with Champagne and tasty canapés. For those who didn’t already know how a logistics centre is built, a crash course was offered through a film that was produced for the event. As a parting gift, all guests were given the newly published book Lycka i ett paket från Borås [Happiness in a package from Borås], with information about Ellos Group’s history with Olle Blomqvist at the helm, as well as the company today and its transformation from a traditional mail order company to a modern e-commerce operator.

TWO YEAR’S BEFORE GOOGLE’S LAUNCH

During the tour that took place at the opening ceremony, curious guests learnt fun facts such as that Ellos launched its first website in 1996, which is two years before Google was even founded. And Ellos Group has 2 million visitors to its online store every week. What a lot of people don’t know is that 50% of turnover was already online in 2007.

They also learnt that Ellos is actually one of Sweden’s most well-known consumer brands, with a brand awareness of over 90 per cent! This means that nine out of ten Swedes recognise Ellos.

Every day, approximately 15,700 packages are sent containing everything from lip gloss, socks and children’s shoes to sofas and mattresses. The 2 February 2019 was a special day. That’s the day where 32,103 packages were delivered, which is the highest number of deliveries ever in a single day. Well, for now at least…

PALLET RACKS THAT REACH GOTHENBURG!

The demand for logistics buildings is increasing greatly. This is partly due to increased e-commerce, as the project with Ellos Group shows, but also due to the phasing out of older buildings which are replaced with new ones. For example, Ellos Group has gathered all of its Home operations together in the new logistics centre. Previously these were located across five different premises.

The new sorting and packing facility will have a capacity of 12,500 items per hour and the pallet racking system has a capacity of 24,000 pallets. The pallet racking is 14 metres high and each aisle is 75 metres long. If you were to take down the existing pallet racks and put them in a line it would be approximately 60 kilometres long, which is about the same distance that separates Borås from Gothenburg.

We are glad that Ellos chose us to be their partner!