In Wattrelos, the 42,000-square-metre warehouse has thrown open its doors. La Redoute’s Quai 30 site, renamed ID4Fashion since it came under the management of ID Logistics on 1 June, has the capacity to handle 45 million orders a year but is currently processing around 20 million. The headroom to ramp up activity is plain to see at the site, which FashionNetwork visited.

Amid the hum of machinery, twenty-one aisles of shelving rise to the high ceiling of a vast storage area. Each aisle is traversed at speed by columns fitted with vertical shuttles that retrieve the required cartons. These then travel by conveyor to operators, who pick the requested items and place them, one by one, into hanging pouches. The pouches proceed along rails to the next room, where a second operator consolidates and packs the orders according to the specifications of the partner brand.

“We know there are stages where clients need highly tailored responses,” explains ID Logistics Fashion Market Director Arnaud Lainé. “Whether it’s quality control or packaging, each retailer has its own requirements and priorities. We’re therefore very flexible on these points, as well as on returns, and we have real expertise with small items,” says the manager, adding that returns are processed so items can be put back on sale within 24 hours.

This order-picking area, like the one dedicated to returns, features numerous unoccupied workstations, designed to accommodate future partner brands and distributors. As with the storage area, the despatch section is highly automated, with a central conveyor distributing parcels to a series of chutes, each corresponding to a destination. From order to despatch, an item can complete the entire process in as little as two hours.

Industrial partnership

Situated on the outskirts of Roubaix, the site and its equipment remain the property of La Redoute. The 350 employees, nearly 60% of whom are women, are now employed by ID Logistics, which operates the site. For La Redoute, with fashion no longer its leading market, the move served a specific purpose.

“The aim is to sustain our industrial activity,” explains Patrice Fitzner, Logistics Director at La Redoute. “We need to be in a position to feed sufficient volume into this site, hence this industrial partnership with ID Logistics to develop a facility in which La Redoute has invested around €45 million since 2013, excluding the building.”

ID4Fashion thus joins the 450 sites already managed in 19 countries by ID Logistics, which boasts over 9 million square metres of warehouse space and more than 22 million transport orders per year. The group, 10% of whose business is linked to the apparel market, sees in the former Quai 30 an opportunity to strengthen its capabilities in this field.

“Against a backdrop of robust online clothing sales, a provider with the capacity to manage flows at scale can be highly relevant,” explains Éric Hémard, President of ID Logistics, for whom the type of strategic partnership initiated with La Redoute is not an isolated case. “We estimate that over the next two or three years, this type of operation could be repeated. And not just in fashion: there are one or two cases that could resemble this in the years ahead.”

New brands in negotiations

The aim is for third-party brands to account for a third of activity in the near future, with La Redoute set to continue occupying the bulk of the site. To attract these new customers, ID4Fashion is banking on next-day delivery in France and delivery within two to four days in around twenty European countries. ID Logistics highlights the diversity of brand profiles currently under discussion.

These range from a premium brand, “Cérémonial”, with an annual volume of 8 million units, 80% of which are sold online, to an affordable fashion brand selling 3 million units, split evenly between stores and online. Also under discussion is a luxury multi-brand platform selling one million items of clothing, footwear and leather goods.

At the same time, ID Logistics is preparing, for 2027 in the Aube region of France, a warehouse dedicated mainly to Parfums Christian Dior. This 25,000-square-metre site will require an investment of €45 million.