Lululemon Opens Canada’s Largest AutoStore

Lululemon has officially opened its new Brampton Distribution Centre, a major one-million-square-foot logistics hub located in Brampton, Ontario.

The facility is one of lululemon’s largest distribution operations in North America and is now home to Canada’s largest AutoStore robotic cube-storage installation. For a Canadian-founded brand that started in Vancouver in 1998, the Brampton hub represents a major investment in domestic logistics capacity, e-commerce fulfillment, and advanced warehouse automation.

A Major Step Forward for Lululemon’s Supply Chain

The new Brampton Distribution Centre is designed to support lululemon’s growing North American fulfillment network. At roughly one million square feet, the facility is equivalent to approximately 57 NHL hockey rinks and is expected to support up to 1,500 local jobs in Brampton once fully scaled.

For lululemon, this facility is not simply about adding warehouse space. It is about adding speed, resilience, and flexibility to a supply chain that must support store replenishment, direct-to-consumer e-commerce, seasonal inventory peaks, and rapid product turnover.

As apparel retailers continue to face increasing customer expectations for fast and accurate order fulfillment, large-scale automation is becoming a key competitive requirement.

Powered by AutoStore Robotics

At the center of the Brampton operation is AutoStore, the Norwegian robotic cube-storage technology used by many of the world’s most advanced retail, e-commerce, and distribution operations.

AutoStore uses a high-density aluminum grid where inventory bins are stacked vertically inside a compact cube. Robots travel across the top of the grid, retrieving bins and delivering them to workstations where orders can be picked, packed, sorted, or replenished.

This approach allows companies to store a high volume of inventory in a much smaller footprint compared with traditional shelving, racking, or manual picking systems. It also reduces travel time for warehouse associates because products are brought to the operator rather than requiring the operator to walk long distances through the facility.

For lululemon, this type of goods-to-person automation is especially well suited to apparel fulfillment, where operations must handle a large number of SKUs, multiple sizes, frequent product launches, seasonal demand swings, and high e-commerce order volumes.

Lee Valley Tools has launched a new automated fulfillment center in West Ottawa that relies on AutoStore automation and technology to increase efficiency and allow more room for manufacturing operations.

Why This Matters for E-Commerce Fulfillment

The Brampton AutoStore system gives lululemon the ability to process more orders with greater consistency, especially during peak periods.

In traditional manual apparel operations, order picking can be highly labour-intensive. Associates may spend much of their day walking between storage locations, searching for items, handling exceptions, or waiting for work to be released. In a high-density robotic system, the workflow becomes more controlled and more predictable.

The key benefits include:

• Faster order processing through goods-to-person picking

• Reduced walking and search time for warehouse employees

• Higher storage density within the same building footprint

• Improved inventory access and replenishment flexibility

• Lower picking error rates through guided workstation processes

• Better scalability during seasonal peaks and promotional periods

For an apparel brand with a strong direct-to-consumer channel, these capabilities are increasingly important. E-commerce fulfillment is no longer a secondary warehouse function. It is now a core operating capability that directly affects customer experience, delivery performance, inventory availability, and brand reputation.

A Canadian Brand Investing at Home

Lululemon’s investment in Brampton also carries symbolic importance.

The company was founded in Vancouver and has grown into one of Canada’s most recognized global retail brands. By opening a highly automated, large-scale distribution hub in Ontario, lululemon is strengthening its North American supply chain while continuing to invest in Canadian operations.

The result is a facility that connects Canadian retail growth, international automation technology, local job creation, and the future of e-commerce logistics.

The Bigger Automation Lesson

The launch of Canada’s largest AutoStore system is another signal that warehouse automation has moved well beyond early adoption.

For major retailers, automation is becoming essential infrastructure. It supports faster fulfillment, greater inventory control, better use of labour, and improved resilience during periods of demand volatility.

Lululemon’s Brampton Distribution Centre shows how high-density robotic storage can be used not only to save space, but to transform the operating model of a modern retail distribution network.

As e-commerce volumes continue to grow and customer expectations continue to rise, more Canadian companies will likely follow this path: larger automated hubs, smarter fulfillment systems, and greater investment in robotics-driven supply chain capacity.

Lululemon’s Brampton AutoStore is now one of the clearest examples of that shift in Canada.