BulbAmerica Profile:

BulbAmerica is the largest online source for light bulbs and fixtures in the United States. They have over 50,000 unique light bulbs, and offer unparralled light bulb pricing along with top notch customer service.

Solution Partners: ChannelAdvisor, ShipStation, Shopify

Market: International

Industry: Tools and Home Improvement

Challenge

Complicated Interface, Multiple System Usage, Out of Stocks, & Inefficient Reorders.

Cory Frons, CEO of Bulb America, was experiencing typical warehouse management problems - too many out of stocks, difficult software, and little-to-no purchase order projection. Under Cory's previous system, there was an issue with user friendliness, or lack thereof. "There's all of this custom code that the developers are pumping in that I don't understand, that they're not commenting on, that's conflicting, and that's full of bugs," Cory explains.

Warehouse workers had to be trained thoroughly over the previous system, and were using multiple shipping programs that were all on different systems. Within the previous system, Cory had to create every product from their catalog to appear as "in stock" for reorders to work properly. Hence, their website displayed products as "in stock" all of the time, even if they did not have the product on hand. This allows for over-sells to occur, and the person who will be the least happy is the customer, receiving the order late.

Solution

Reorder Data, SkuVault Integrations, Straightforward Interface.

Cory discussed the "nightmare" of the software he was using with Scot Wingo of ChannelAdvisor. Wingo recommended to Cory that he try Shopify in tandem with ChannelAdvisor. He did, and the results were great: "I immediately made the decision to transfer the whole site over." Still, Cory wasn't sure how they were going to replicate the pick and pack process for order fulfillment.

Cory and Scot discussed how SkuVault's software works, including seamless integration with ChannelAdvisor, Shopify, and ShipStation - a shipping software Cory had been using for years. SkuVault tracks sales over time and predicts product quantities that will be needed in the future. This ensures that orders are met before stock is unavailable to customers. For Cory, the integrations feature, linking with his other preferred software, accompanied by our user-friendly interface was just what they needed!

"WE'RE ABLE TO GO THROUGH THE SAME AMOUNT OF ORDERS IN A SHORTER AMOUNT OF TIME."

Results

Improved Reordering, Simpler Training Process, Increased Team Efficiency.

SkuVault increased efficiency and decreased human error, significantly, for Cory and his team. Cory reflects these changes stating, "...[It's] gotten easier, you know, we didn't have tickets the way we do today. We were printing out orders, and they're able to go through the same amount of orders in a shorter period of time."

The way Cory's team does purchases now has completely changed. No more showing products as "in stock" when they are not. Now, SkuVault reorder data allows Cory to determine the approximate amount of product he will need for the next few months. "...[For] the first time in many, many years we're in a place where if we don't have something in stock, we can't sell it. Whereas, in the past it didn't matter if we didn't have anything in stock, we could sell it all day.”

The training process has improved immensely for Cory and his team. "[It's] really become streamlined. The quality control feature offered by SkuVault helps them pass things without any mistakes. You can feel comfortable that you've shipped out exactly what needs to be shipped out." Utilizing SkuVault alongside ChannelAdvisor, Shopify, and ShipStation was the exact combination that Bulb America needed. "Now that we have the integration with SkuVault directly into ShipStation, they don't have to use different systems to create shipping labels anymore. So it really goes from pick list, out of SkuVault, to grabbing it at the warehouse, going into ShipStation and out it goes. It's really just plug and play." Cory and Scot from ChannelAdvisor spoke on the new process: "We now call it the magic square."