Central Warehouse to stock items
“We set up a central warehouse, where we stock items which are high in demand.
Partnership with third party fulfillment providers
To oil the fulfillment cycle, we outsourced our fulfillment service to a third-party provider. However, partnering with third-party provider means losing hold & visibility over the order fulfillment process. Lost or damaged merchandise, delay in shipments and human errors were potential concerns. Moreover, from a customer’s point of view, taking fulfillment into our own hands allowed us to have better connectivity with our customers.
On the top of that, we partnered with Royal Mail logistic services, as they provide special discounted shipping rates to our customers, this gave us some cost competency and also encouraged us to form a network with wholesalers and do bulk shipment.
Embrace additional sales channels
To give our sales a further boost, we also embraced additional channels and setup our store on Amazon.
The Need to automate core business processes
As the volume of orders increased, the problem of consolidating the order data from various sales channels and implementing inventory management process to evaluate the correct stock level became a concern.
We soon adopted TradeGecko, as they automated our inventory management workflow, however, failed to automate the shipping management workflow which caused supply chain setbacks.
As a result, we ended up using two different systems for managing inventory workflow & shipping workflow.
Challenges
Using two different software for managing inventory & shipping processes
“Before Orderhive came as a relief, we were using two different systems for managing our inventory and shipping processes. We were juggling between two sets of data generated by two different systems and had to hire additional staff who spend time on repetitive process and coordinating things between the sales, warehouse and the logistic team.”
There was no automated data connector between our inventory management system & shipping
Which resulted into information inaccuracy in the inventory system
As the stock information does not synchronize with the shipping software, Josh faced the issue of stock discrepancy.
“Often the actual stock in the warehouse does not match with the recorded stock, which disrupts our replenishment process and creates a severe out-of-stock issue.”
Inefficient supply chain process
As the inventory system doesn’t automatically sync data in the shipping system, the warehouse staff wasn’t able to pass correct information to the third-party logistic company, which caused further delay in processing the orders.
Again, the delivery notification generated by the third-party shipping provider does not get sync with the inventory management system, which results in inaccurate stock level across the sales channel.
Lack of real-time visibility
“Our software system were not integrated which caused multiple overlapping of the database which caused confusion and chaos.
With data inaccuracy, the reports generated by TradeGecko across the finance, sales and marketing service did not give us an integrated view of our company’s performance.
Consequently, we either ended up making critical decisions slowly or made us take risky decisions which cost us heavily.
Solution Delivered
Bring Inventory management & shipping management capabilities in a single integrated platform
“Orderhive for sure is the best e-commerce system that we have come across, it allowed us to track & manage orders, inventory and shipping processes from a single interface.
With an integrated system, we only have to update our data once. The inventory level gets automatically synced and updated across our sales channels and same gets reflected in the warehouse system, which gave us accurate information of the stock levels and plans strategies to sell available inventory.
We don’t worry anymore about overselling merchandise or having items languish on our warehouse shelves.“
Automated Supply chain process improved order delivery accuracy.
“Orderhive automated our entire supply chain process, Functionally, it removes the incoherence between various processes and allows an entire process,
such as shipping, warehousing to be handled in one centralized process.
- Shipping management, which includes procurement of items from a supplier, generating shipping label, optimization of supply chain cost, tracking orders across the fulfillment process.
- Warehouse management, track & locate inventory through bin location, regulate distribution process.
Quick and effortless collaboration with their third-party logistic partners allowed us to sync necessary inventory & tracking updates, which help us to gain full visibility across the fulfillment process.”
Dramatically improved data visibility
Real-time visibility helped Josh in making timely informed decisions. By having all the business data in real-time, the team is able to monitor the total cost incurred during a fulfillment process against the actual profit made. Also, they can also plan production in advance with key demand analytics, enabling them to cut on unnecessary cost and improve productivity with ease.
Results
- Inventory management & shipping management capabilities in a single integrated platform.
- Improved visibility across the fulfillment process
- Automated entire supply chain process and allowed easy collaboration with 3PL logistic company
