Health, Wellness, & Fitness Case Study
Onnit provides supplements, fitness equipment, and nutrient-dense & Earth-grown foods on their website.
Company Profile: Onnit is the leader clinically studied supplements, earth grown foods, and unconventional fitness tools.
Solution Partners: Amazon | Magento | ShipStation | Shopify
Market: International
Industry: Health, Wellness, Fitness
"SkuVault's helped tremendously for inventory accuracy, time management, and, in the long run, saved money, cause the numbers will always be accurate."
Challenge | Manual and Excel based inventory tracking
Onnit, a supplement and wellness company was built from the idea that supplements could be better. In 2010, Aubrey Marcus, now the CEO of Onnit, was frustrated with the supplement industry’s focus on providing only ingredients to solve a problem. Vitamins like zinc alone wasn’t the solution. So, he took matters into his own hands. Marcus created Onnit in 2011 with a mission to solve a problem using ingredients synergistically.
With this mission in mind, he created Alpha Brain, a cognitive enhancer designed to increase Total Human Optimization. Total Human Optimization is Onnit’s motto - both in their product and business. Since their founding in 2011, Onnit has earned the support of top professional athletes and is often featured on comedian/entertainer Joe Rogan’s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.” You can often find Lance Armstrong training in the corner of the company’s Austin, TX headquarters.
Solution | Inventory Management System with an easy user interface
With popularity comes growth, and with growth comes logistical challenges. “There was $100,000 in sales and three people here just putting bottles in boxes. And that created an obvious logistical challenge right from the beginning,” says Onnit’s Chief of Operations Jason Havey.
With boxes piling up, Onnit knew they had to implement something more than Excel spreadsheets and manual hand counts. They needed an automated process. “SkuVault very clearly had the easiest user-interface and was the easiest on our inventory guys to update, maintain, and proliferate throughout the company,” says Havey.
Once Onnit implemented SkuVault, they took advantage of the quality control and automatic inventory syncing capabilities at the start. “I used to manually sit there and count for hours.” says Onnit Wholesale Fulfillment employee Roger. “Having SkuVault has helped tremendously, as far as inventory accuracy, time management, and efficiency at work.”
But just because you have the inventory, doesn’t mean you’ll be successful without a shipping solution to get orders to the customers. In 2012, Onnit integrated their marketplace channels and fulfillment through SkuVault with eCommerce shipping platform ShipStation. When Onnit began using ShipStation, they were sending out about 250 orders daily.
“When we were looking for an inventory program, one of the most important things was how it was going to play with everything else,” says Jason. “One thing about SkuVault is that with ShipStation, it works seamlessly.”
This new seamless integration has reached 6,000 orders shipped each day.
Results | Seamless integration with other software and decreased mis-ships
“When you’re looking for an inventory to shipping platform, they need to be an addition to your productivity, not a retraction,” says Jason. “And in my experience with Onnit, both ShipStation and SkuVault have been those additions.”
With the new software additions to Onnit’s business, their mis-ships have decreased to 0.03%. Jason says the integration pair always work perfectly, even during their busiest days on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
As the company continues to grow, so does their name. You can now find their products on the shelves at your local Whole Foods. And in their quest to become a household name, SkuVault and ShipStation are there to scale along with them.
“They’ve been important brand partners to us, and they’ve been very responsive to our growth. They have been a value add to everything we’ve done.” says Jason.