Sephora chooses RedPrairie for warehouse management

MILWAUKEE — RedPrairie Corp. announced today its Warehouse Management solution is running in cosmetics retailer Sephora's new Salt Lake City distribution center. The warehous-management system will support the global company's multichannel business, directing shipments to both retail outlets and customers purchasing on Sephora.com by mid-2009.

Sephora is a leading global beauty-product chain, with more than 515 stores in 14 countries worldwide — 227 located in the United States. The company chose to partner with RedPrairie for its software's advanced service-oriented architecture (SOA), proven experience in high-transaction environments and industry-leading Workforce Management application.

RedPrairie also supports the company's Maryland distribution center, servicing 115 stores. The two distribution centers together will service 100 percent of Sephora's North American output.

"When we first selected Warehouse Management, we were looking for a supply-chain partner who could support both retail and direct-to-consumer operations in a single facility," said Janet Hanson, Sephora's chief information officer. "The two shipping processes are very different, so the warehouse-management application had to be very adaptable and flexible. RedPrairie had the retail expertise we were looking for, with a warehouse-management product we could deploy on our own technology platform."