Ben Peters: In our journey from chaos to order, Descartes Sellercloud team has been a huge partner for us. When we discovered Sellercloud, we were really in a pickle. We were using Channel Advisor, Skuvault, and Shipstation. Three separate modules trying to accomplish the same multichannel posting, inventory, data management, as well as physical inventory management and our shipping solution.
Ben Peters: When we went and found Sellercloud, they said – we have a solution that has everything in one package. We manage our warehouse operations, as well as our ecommerce and SKU data. Having that all in one program simplified things significantly, as well as reducing the cost from having to pay multiple platforms.
Ben Peters: The communication time between platforms is all just in one now, where I can just train one team through one process and one system and deploy it into any of our warehouses and get them operational quickly.
Ben Peters: The Descartes platform is supporting our business growth in huge ways. Over the last 10 years, we have had over 700,000 SKUs created in our catalog, and we’re adding new ones every single day. So having a platform that can support a catalog that large and with that much demand was absolutely needed as a foundational piece to continue growing our business, as well as to adapt it into our B2B sales processes, as well as our 3PL unit.
Ben Peters: ER2 started in 2012, helping clients dispose of their IT electronic assets. We then take those assets and refurbish them in our warehouses, where we post them online and sell them through ecommerce marketplaces, as well as through B2B platforms and to other end-user clients.
Ben Peters: We’ve got eight warehouses around the country, all funneling this refurbished gear into our Mesa location to be refurbished. We ship from three warehouses. And the Descartes team was able to help us put together a logical and intelligent order routing, such that it accommodates fulfilling a product from the warehouse that has the stock but even that is closest to its destination zip code.
Ben Peters: The order engine and the rules that you’re able to put into place have impacted us significantly. From being able to assign orders to warehouses that are closer to the destination, we’ve reduced shipping cost, and we’ve also increased client satisfaction. Because while the ecommerce platform might tell them it’ll take 4 to 5 days to receive something, if we’re shipping it from a warehouse that’s closer, they get a surprise and delight.
Ben Peters: By strategically warehousing SKUs in different facilities across the country, we found significant savings as we did our research and found that 40% of our shipments are actually heading east. So by warehousing out of our Memphis, Tennessee location strategic SKUs that we found are the most purchased into those areas, we’ve significantly reduced the shipping cost on about 40% of our shipments.
Ben Peters: If I can have somebody follow really clear, simple steps and automate the things that we don’t want to be doing, it really gives us the time to focus on the valuable activity that we should be doing, which is refurbishing laptops, fulfilling orders. And that’s where Sellercloud’s order management and warehouse management tools come in, that completely support everything that we’re trying to do. Taking chaos and turning it into order.
Ben Peters: Bin-controlled inventory locations is probably the most important thing a company can move to. Accuracy is huge, and forcing barcode scans is a must. You must know that you’re picking the correct product. You must know that it’s SKUed and inventoried correctly. So by validating that throughout your picking process and shipping, you know that you’re not going to cross ship something. The system will stop you from cross shipping if you scan the wrong barcode.
Ben Peters: We had easily a 75% time savings in order picking by moving to this process.
Sellercloud as a multichannel listing tool has been huge, as we came from an ecommerce only company. So we’ve been able to post to Walmart, eBay, Amazon, our own big ecommerce store, and several other marketplaces throughout the years.
Ben Peters: But as our company has grown, we’ve added on additional services and business units, growing a direct sales team with a robust business-to-business (B2B) sales, which Sellercloud easily supports, as well as a 3PL-style warehousing service where our clients pay us to warehouse and fulfill their equipment on demand when they need it at their locations.
Ben Peters: Sellercloud has easily been able to provide us with a framework and infrastructure to support all of those needs. So beyond just an ecommerce support program, it has actually scaled with our operation as we’ve grown. Descartes multichannel integration tool is phenomenal.
Ben Peters: Marketplace requirements are kind of like tax law. You wouldn’t try to understand tax law by yourself. You would hire an accountant to do that, a specialist. Marketplaces are the same way. Walmart is going to change the requirements today, eBay is going to change them tomorrow, Amazon’s going to change them the day after that.
Ben Peters: Descartes team is ahead of the game. They are partnering with those marketplaces, meeting with their specialists so that those updates are already available in the Descartes platform by the time that you need them, so that your listings are always live, being updated, and your revenue is never dipping because your listings go down.
Ben Peters: Their support team is fantastic. When there are any changes that come out, they send out updates. They’re ahead of the game, in all those regards. It’s important for us as a company with a core value of continuous improvement to find partners who are like-minded. Descartes is like-minded. They value continuous improvement just as much as we do.
Ben Peters: My advice to business leaders who are facing operational challenges is to get a partner who is on the cutting edge, one who has experience in the industry for years and years, like Descartes. Their team is incredible. You need a partner who knows what they’re doing, and you can’t solve all your operational problems alone. You might be a unique industry like we are but bringing in that third party with that different perspective, a different set of eyes on how your operation might be challenged and how they can support you is critical.
