Turning Empty Carton Space into Profit
The Challenge
A major global producer of wine and spirits—ranked among the top two in the world—faced a recurring logistics issue: most shipping cartons were designed for six bottles, but many sales orders didn’t align with that quantity. As a result, the final carton in a shipment often contained one or more empty slots, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.
The Expectation
The client asked Shelly to propose a smart, non-disruptive strategy to address this issue—without compromising the flexibility that was a hallmark of their service, especially for high-demand customers like clubs and resorts needing urgent restocking.
The Strategic Insight
Shelly’s analysis concluded that enforcing strict multiples of six would harm customer experience. Instead, Shelly proposed a creative solution: transform the empty slots into a promotional opportunity.
The Solution
Shelly deployed and trained a Digital Collaborator (DiCo) that integrated directly into the shipping process. Upon scanning a product’s ID (barcode, QR code, etc.), the DiCo was able to:
- Calculate how many empty slots would remain in the final carton of the shipment.
- Identify high-margin products that the ordering customer had never purchased before.
- Check inventory levels of those products in the shipping warehouse.
- Guide the shipment preparer to select the most appropriate high-margin product to fill the empty slots.
- Update the shipment in the ERP system and notify relevant teams (inventory, sales, etc.).
- Send a respectful promotional email to the customer:
“You’ll find a complimentary product in your shipment that we believe you’ll enjoy.”
The Result
In 92% of cases, customers who received these complimentary samples went on to include the new product in future orders. What was once wasted space became a margin-building opportunity, thanks to Shelly’s intelligent automation.
