We’re very lucky here at Cotswold Collections to receive lovely, glowing reviews about our customer service as well as our beautifully packaged parcels. Because of this, we wanted to shine the spotlight on the team whose passion for care and detail is presented in every Cotswold Collections box, including our brilliant warehouse manager who oversees the whole operation.

After rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, travelling to work and grabbing a cup of tea, Oli starts his day by opening up the warehouse. Based on-site at our offices, our warehouse team work tirelessly to process our orders, returns, back orders and deliveries. Oli’s first task is usually grabbing the awaiting bottles of milk, without which Cotswold Collections wouldn’t survive for all the cups of tea and coffee we consume! After this, he greets the Royal Mail driver delivering the returns for the day and the team begin processing them. This includes re-buttoning garments, carrying out quality checks and returning them to the product location in the warehouse rails.


While the team set about this task, Oli and his assistant manager Kelly review the paperwork for the returns, adding them back on the system as in-stock and then start preparing all international orders for despatch. This includes liaising with required delivery companies depending on each parcel’s final destination.

“An average day consists of a multitude of tasks for me in the warehouse” Oil says. “They can range from ensuring all health and safety policies are adhered to, checking equipment, re-stocking supplies for packaging and re-ordering when necessary. I also help the team pack the boxes and check availability of stock”.

We’re very proud of our extremely low despatch error rate here at Cotswold Collections and Oli and his team are highly responsible for such a brilliant achievement. In fact, they have a three-step procedure to maintain this, with each stage being completed by a different team member:
Step 1 – Picking: ““Our orders our picked in batches of 10, which means each batch has 10 different customer orders in”.
Step 2 – Sorting: “Each batch of 10 is then broken down into each individual customer order”.
Step 3 – Packing: “This part ensures the clothing is packaged to our company standards to create beautiful parcels that our customers are excited to receive. Our regular customers may notice that there are little ticks on their order sheet against their items, we do this as a visual indicator that each piece ordered is in the parcel”.

The team put a lot of thought into each box, either by packing them by colour coordination or matching outfits. Oli says ““our customer comes first, it’s both a company ethos and a mantra here in the warehouse. Every box is an experience for our customer and our aim is to make them as inviting and enticing as we can by providing that wow factor”. Even orders received before 4pm will be picked, sorted, packaged and with Royal Mail the same day, Oli and his team of eight really go above and beyond to achieve every order and attain high customer satisfaction.

Depending on where we are in a season, Oli and the team will also complete stock takes “this is imperative to our process in order to maintain stock accuracy and avoid disappointment of item unavailability”. Seven times a year, in line with each season, they also reorganise and consolidate products, as well as accept deliveries of garments from our suppliers once they’ve been designed, signed off and confirmed by the buyers and designers.

When asked about his favourite part of the day-to-day, Oli said “I really enjoy the balance I have between admin and being active. I also love problem solving in the warehouse and finding the solutions to meet the demands of the business while also improving the experience of our customer. This includes looking at new, innovative ideas that can develop the business and we can be proactive in their implementation to maximise the potential of the warehouse”.

An example of the work Oli has done regarding problem solving is his exploration and implementation of increasing the sustainability of the business, including introducing eco-friendly packaging that can be recycled again. “In fact, all our return boxes are crushed into bails in our 'bailer' and then sent to a local eco company that transform recycling into green energy”.
Read more about our sustainability processes here >>

Once the last orders have left the business and the paperwork has been handed over to the Royal Mail driver, the team start back on processing returns ready for the garments to be quality checked, re-buttoned and added back into stock the following morning…

Do you have any pressing questions you'd like answering? Let us know in the comments and we'll get Oli to answer them...