DealsDirect.com.au prides itself on being online, on time and on budget

According to HitWise, DealsDirect.com.au is Australia's number 1 online shopping department store. At DealsDirect.com.au you'll find bargains and discount prices on thousands of hot products in over 27 categories - everything from Baby to Electronics, from Perfume to Tools, from Jewellery to CDs. Unlike real world retail stores, DealsDirect are open for business 24 hours 7 days a week. They also guarantee to offer next day dispatch on 95% of all online orders, and have delivered over 1 million packages to over 500,000 happy customers to date.

BRW magazine awarded them the 31st fastest growing business in Australia in October 2006, and they are continuing to grow quickly. Such rapid growth needs an efficient and responsive team to manage it, and DealsDirect.com.au has exactly that. DealsDirect is backed by a team of 48 friendly faces and is stationed in Sydney with headquarters which include a state of the art distribution centre, and a fleet of Linde electric forklifts. No-one understands the extent of this growth quite like Tanya Scott, DealsDirect’s Distribution Centre Manager, who’s seen the expansion first hand; “DealsDirect.com.au started in October 2004. Since that year we’ve had over 50% growth year on year. Which means that our warehouse has also grown substantially! We went from 50 metres squared to 200, then to 400, then 1000, then 5000 and our warehouse now stands at 20,000 metres squared”.

Finding the right equipment for the team

When Tanya started with DealsDirect, she was given the task of selecting the right materials handling company to assist her with the increasing demands of the warehouse.
“I came on board in September 2005 at Punchbowl when we had just moved warehouses. We had gone from the smaller premises in Silverwater where we had only 1 forklift, which was a total dinosaur, to Punchbowl where we decided it was time for a new fleet! Initially we just had interim materials handling companies in to help out. We had Toyota in for a while, because I’d had experience with them before when I was working with Go Lo. But, I thought it would be best for the business if we took our fleet management to tender. I invited Toyota, Crown and Linde to tender and basically said to the operators, ‘Look, you guys have to drive these trucks all day, I’m not the one that has to sit on them, you guys do, so let’s just see which ones are the most productive and user friendly’. They then tested each of the trucks provided by the tendering companies, and looked for the ones that were the most comfortable, manoeuvrable and had the best visibility. We needed our materials handling provider to provide the most reliable, efficient, quiet and up-to-date machines as well. Linde definitely provided the highest quality and the most state of the art machinery.”

Sticking with a single provider

Tanya wasn’t just looking for the forklifts that the drivers were most comfortable driving, she was also looking for a company that would support her needs. She adds, “I wanted to just stick with the one company. One company makes it easier as I only have to contact one person if there’s ever an issue or enquiry. It also means we get better pricing, rather than chopping and changing deals between providers. One thing that I really focus on is achieving a long-term partnership. We’ve got a really good relationship with our sales rep, Glen Taylor, who’s seen us grow from Punchbowl 2 years ago, to now at Ingleburn. He was pretty blown away by our growth. It’s just so much easier when I can ring Glen up with any query, whatever it is, and know that he’s onto it straight away, and he knows the history of our fleet as well, which is great”.

Choosing a greener option

DealsDirect is proud to be carbon neutral. They have partnered with Carbon Planet to offset all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that result from the operation of their business, right down to the transport of packages to your doorstep, in an effort to help save the environment. And this need to be green extends to the Linde fleet.
“We wanted to change to all electric forklifts. We had a few gas ones in the fleet initially, but we decided that we wanted all electric to be a bit more environmentally friendly. The whole fleet that I’ve got here now is electric, and we love it. They’re quiet and there are no emissions, so it’s safer for our drivers too. I remember when one of the guys suggested all electric and I thought, ‘oh, well they’re not going to be as powerful, gas would have to be better’ but the Linde electric trucks have changed my mindset”.

Quality and service

Linde Material Handling believes that being a great material handling provider means more than simply supplying their clients with a forklift. They pledge to offer a complete materials handling package, from regular field service to cost effective and timely parts, and Tanya admits to experiencing just that; “Even though Linde are a little bit more expensive initially than the rest of the forklifts on the market, they’re worth it because the machinery lasts a lot longer between services. For instance, we haven’t had any battery changes since we got our new fleet in May 2006. So we’ve had a lot of the machinery for nearly 2 years now, with no issues”.

“The Linde service guys are great as well. We don’t even call them, they just come in and let us know when a truck is due for a service, so they are already pre-empting any potential problems”.

“As on online retailer, it’s really important that we dispatch our orders within 24 hours or we start to get behind, which is why it’s crucial that we have all the forklifts up and running all the time, and that they are as efficient as they can be. Our fleet of Linde electric forklifts has certainly risen to that challenge”.