Wayfinding for Wildberries suppliers

Wildberries is the largest Russian online retailer. Thousands of suppliers deliver goods to Wildberries’ warehouses daily. The challenge is to increase the throughput of warehouses and the willingness of suppliers to do business with Wildberries by making unloading faster and more comfortable.

Analysis

Wayfinding begins long before arrival at the warehouse:

In the largest warehouses, the queue is automated. When a camera at the entrance recognizes a vehicle, the barrier opens and the vehicle is placed in the unloading queue. The driver can monitor their place in the queue on a large LED board placed on the warehouse wall or by using a special app. But the board is visible only from certain places while the app needs to be installed and configured. Plus, some drivers do not know about this system. It is also not clear what to do if something goes wrong.

At each stage, the difficulties of suppliers and drivers were analyzed, and improvements were implemented at different levels. The complete solution includes the development of a new service, improvement of the supplier webssite, and communication on the warehouse premises.

Tablo.wb.ru

The centerpiece of the solution is the new service, Tablo.wb.ru. It is a mobile website that shows the warehouse queue without any special setup. Just pick the warehouse from list and see which gate has been assigned to you:

If you tap on the vehicle license plate number, the vehicle page opens. It is permanent and does not depend on the specific delivery.

If you deliver goods to Wildberries’ warehouses regularly, it is better to add your vehicle page to browser favorites, and your phone will always show the necessary information:

Help to the supplier after the delivery has been created

Now right after creating a delivery, the supplier’s website explains what’s next. It offers to print out the driver’s guide or open the link on the phone:

When you create a delivery, the license plate number of the deliry vehicle is also specified, so the link leads directly to the vehicle page.

Driver’s guide

If the goods will be carried by a driver, the supplier only needs to print out the driver’s guide and hand it over with other delivery documents:

The guide contains everything the driver needs. The QR code opens the vehicle page with live queue information. The supplier no longer has to explain to the driver where to go, and the driver does not have to figure out on the spot how to access the premises and unload.

For the guides and Tablo.wb.ru website, maps of the largest warehouses are drawn:

Banner and signage on the premises

If the driver has lost the guide, they are now greeted at the warehouse by a large banner:

The banner leads to the warehouse page on Tablo.wb.ru, where you can find your vehicle in the list and go to its page.

There are also signs for gates, units, and exits placed throughout the warehouse. The signs are designed with a unified modular system and match the size of a panel on the warehouse wall:

When placing the signage, the vehicle paths were analyzed and flows were corrected according to the warehouse management’s preferences.

The warehouse LED board

The existing LED board has been redesigned to better utilize the space and improve legibility:

The license plate numbers are shown in the usual format:

The list layout smartly adapts to the information that has to be shown. The vehicles that have already been assigned a gate for unloading take as much space as possible, while the waiting ones can be shown in groups by paging if necessary.

Wildberries logo at the bottom is displayed in the column where there is free space, or disappears altogether if it interferes with showing the full vehicle list.