The Aspecs Profile

The Aspecs sells high-end, luxury, designer eyewear from brands such as Prada, Persol, Chanel, Ray-Ban, Oliver Peoples, and RetroSuperFuture. Initially they sold on their website only, but they now have an international presence on over a dozen online marketplaces.

Solution Partners: BigCommerce, ChannelAdvisor,ShipStation

Market: International

Industry: Apparel 

Challenge

Troubles with oversells, inventory counts, and marketplaces

Guy Bauer, CEO of The Aspecs, came to the crossroads that all successful eCommerce companies come to at one point or another - The Aspecs had finally reached the point where they needed a warehouse management system in order to accommodate their growth. “As our inventory and sales increased, we started to have a huge problem with overselling. The inventory management system that we were using at the time did not have barcode scanning capabilities, and as a result our listed quantity on hand was often incorrect, inventory counts were tedious with a lot of room for human error, and because we were overselling products so often our various marketplace accounts started to suffer.”

After shopping around and speaking with partners and colleagues, Guy found what he was looking for in SkuVault. “We specifically chose SkuVault as our warehouse management system after hearing good things from eBay and ChannelAdvisor.”

Solution

Easy launch, barcoding, and inventory management

Right at the start, Guy says, “The launch process was extremely easy. We just emailed a list of our SKU’s to SkuVault, with their help decided the best way to setup locations in our warehouse, and SkuVault took care of the rest for us.” Once The Aspecs was up and running with SkuVault, Guy was immediately able to see the positive effect on his warehouse and employee performance.

“SkuVault has significantly improved our workflow and overall efficiency; We no longer have issues with overselling, I am confidant that our listed quantity on hand is correct, I know exactly where every product in our warehouse is, we no longer have to spend time scouring our warehouse for sold items that cannot be found, picking and packing moves a lot faster. SkuVault has also essentially become a master list of our SKU’s and their UPC’s, and it is very convenient being able to find one of our product’s UPC’s on the go.”

"I can't imagine using any other Inventory Management System."

In utilizing SkuVault, Guy was also able to take advantage of two of their other eCommerce services, ChannelAdvisor and ShipStation, to their fullest. “SkuVault’s ChannelAdvisor Sync Report is very handy. Because of SkuVault, I’m confident that our quantities in ChannelAdvisor are correct, and with [SkuVault’s Shipstation integration] we now print one piece of paper for every order which doubles as an invoice and shipping label, saving us time and money.”

Results

Eliminated oversells and improved marketplace feedback

A particularly good indicator of how well SkuVault is helping, we’ve found, is to compare Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays pre and post SkuVault. Not just in terms of sales - but in terms of other aspects, such as customer service, feedback, preparedness, etc., as well. “Our Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales for this year were greater than they have been in the past,” Guy told us, “and I definitely think that SkuVault helped us accomplish this goal. Because every item in our warehouse has to be scanned in and out of inventory, it is very easy for me to see what items we have in stock, and to make sure that every item in stock is listed on every marketplace that we sell on. Also, because we no longer have to deal with overselling, we had more time to optimize our listings. Lastly, we were able to provide better assistance when on the phone with our customers because it’s easy to check exactly what’s in stock, and when we look up items in SkuVault, a photo of the item along with product attributes also pulls up.”

When asked his favorite feature, Guy responded: “My favorite SkuVault feature is the scanning in and out of products. I used to hate not knowing if our quantity listed online was correct - it’s awful telling a customer that you have something in stock, only to find out that it’s actually out of stock... With SkuVault I can check our quantity on hand from any computer, and I’m confident that it’s correct. SkuVault has fixed our overselling problem, and as a result, our marketplace reviews have improved. SkuVault has been an amazing tool for us and I can’t imagine using any other inventory management system.”