Global Fashion Group opens giant logistics hub in Brazil

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 11, 2021

European e-tail giant Global Fashion Group has launched full operations at the largest automated fashion e-commerce fulfilment centre in Latin America.

The move comes as the company, which owns Dafiti, Lamoda, Zalora and The Iconic, celebrates its 10-year anniversary with the group having made a €50 million investment in the hub that it said will serve more than 5 million customers across Brazil and over 1,000 brand partners “with greater speed and efficiency than ever”.

Called LEAP, the company clearly thinks the facility is a big deal and said it “has the potential to revolutionise Brazil’s fashion e-commerce ecosystem and further boost the growth of Dafiti, GFG’s business in Latin America”.

The facility is near Sao Paulo and while it’s currently the largest fulfilment centre in the region, it also has “significant room to increase its capacity over time". It also houses the largest AutoStore fulfilment automation solution in the world.

It’s the size of around 30 soccer fields and can store over 8 million items. The AutoStore system features around 300 robots and 450,000 bins, powered by software that leverages artificial intelligence and predictive analysis technology. It can sort items into 5,000 bins per hour, with the AutoStore system able to sort and pick items three times faster than the last-generation fulfilment system.  

Co-CEO Christoph Barchewitz called its a “milestone” for the group and highlighted that “we remain the only online fashion and lifestyle-focused platform operating at scale in our markets”.

Meanwhile Philipp Povel, co-founder and CEO of Dafiti, added: “Dafiti has played a leading role in shaping the online fashion ecosystem in Latin America since the industry’s nascent days in 2011. Now we are ready to accelerate our growth and further strengthen our role in the ecosystem. Our ambition is to become the starting point for fashion in Latin America, by leveraging the scale of our platform, our customer base and our brand partnerships.”