Williams-Sonoma to Expand Manufacturing

Williams-Sonoma (San Francisco) plans to increase its manufacturing and distribution capacity by 20 percent to 30 percent over the next year, President, Director and CEO Laura Alber said on the company’s earnings call last week.

The expansions will include the addition of about two million square feet to the company’s distribution network. The company also plans to open two distributions centers to support growth and investments in automation to drive speed and efficiency throughout operations.

Alber said during the call: “In the past quarter we increased our total buy online, pick up in store and ship-from-source sales by over 130 percent as we leverage our retail network as fulfillment hub. This is a huge unlock for our distribution operations, and it is one of the reasons we were able to fulfill higher than expected volumes this holiday season despite gridlock issues that impacted the industry.”