Video Testimonial
E-commerce is constantly changing, and you have to be competitive to be successful. Seeing Sellercloud constantly evolve has really given us the confidencе that Sellercloud is the way to go.
Co-owner, Palatize
Palatize
Client since: 2023
Uses: Sellercloud, Skustack, Shipbridge
Industry: General Merchandise
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Midway, GA
Company size: 11-50 employees
Types of items sold: Mostly groceries, but also household, home, and kitchen products.
“Sellercloud is definitely a tool that you should utilize sooner than later.”
Jonathan Stewart, Co-owner, Palatize
Before Sellercloud
Palatize is a primarily FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) business set up by two brothers several years ago in Midway, Georgia. “We sell about 80% grocery products and also household items and home and kitchen,” Co-owner Jonathan Stewart tells us.
The family business started when Stewart’s brother’s previous business failed, leaving him with inventory he didn’t know what to do with. “We actually started off by selling just items that were around the house effectively from other businesses,” said Stewart, “We actually discovered, hey, you can make some money selling these items, on Amazon in our case.”
The Challenge
After a few years of success, Palatize began to set its sights beyond FBA. “We wanted to switch from being a primary FBA company to a merchant fulfilled company because it gives you more control over your future and your outcomes,” explained Stewart. He elaborated that an FBA business can struggle with lost inventory, damaged goods, and expired inventory. “There’s a lot of headaches in dealing with FBA and being able to primarily switch towards a merchant fulfilled structure would be that you don’t have to deal with that.”
However, they needed a more sophisticated e-commerce solution to pivot the business to FBM, as their current solution couldn’t do much beyond restocking. “We found that it had lots of limitations. It was not very customizable. It was not capable of really expanding our business beyond FBA,” said Stewart.
Palatize had to work around their previous e-commerce solution, which led to inefficiencies and cost them valuable time in manual processes. For example, the software could not receive several POs (Purchase Orders) simultaneously, did not enable Palatize to bulk upload products to their catalog and onto marketplaces, and did not support custom columns and fields. “We couldn’t manipulate the data in a usable way,” said Stewart. If they were going to rely less on FBA, they needed more functionality from their software to manage processes in a way that works for them.
Palatize also realized that relying on Amazon Seller Central was insufficient to handle their shipping operations and needed a designated solution, which their current software did not provide. It also became clear that they needed a WMS (Warehouse Management System) solution to help maintain warehouse efficiency as they moved away from FBA.
Stewart found that many of the e-commerce solutions were inadequate for their needs, however, they quickly began to differentiate between the poor options and the good. “Some of the other solutions that we looked at, it looked almost like it was Windows 2000 software,” said Stewart.
The Solution
When Palatize began their hunt for a better, more comprehensive e-commerce solution, there was one key thing they were looking for—innovation—and it was during a user conference that they realized Sellercloud was the right solution for them. “Sellercloud would show all of the great new features that became available, and so what we saw was that Sellercloud was a company that evolved their software more so than other options,” said Stewart. Palatize was wise enough to know that the e-commerce industry changes regularly and quickly, so any solution had to reflect that.
Furthermore, they knew the solution had to offer customization, list products on new marketplaces, and keep inventory in sync. Palatize found that Sellercloud excelled at all three and was packed full of features to better manage their FBA operations, enabling them to spend more time expanding to new channels.
When it came to integrating Sellercloud, Palatize was impressed by the support they received and how little was required from them. Stewart was initially concerned that it would be hard to migrate to Sellercloud’s system and maintain their workflow but found that wasn’t the case.
Stewart praised the inventory visibility Sellercloud provides, enabling him to always know what products they have and in what quantities. He also found that adding new products to their channels was easier than before. “A lot of the time what we will do is just import a file. We’ll do a batch file, maybe import a thousand items at one time,” he said, “That is very, very easy to do with Sellercloud. We were not able to do that with other software really at all.”
Additionally, Sellercloud’s array of plugins and customizations helped Palatize work the way they wanted. For example, Stewart explains how he is responsible for purchasing for the company. He was impressed with Sellercloud’s predictive purchasing features, which enabled Palatize to export data, manipulate it, and make purchasing decisions.
Another excellent feature that has made work easier for Palatize is the ability to create ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers) within Sellercloud. “Now that Sellercloud is able to create new ASINs on Amazon just straight through the software, we are really looking forward to taking advantage of that service,” said Stewart. He also noted how Sellercloud enables Palatize to create GTIN-exempt ASINs, saving prep time for many items.
Palatize also utilizes Shipbridge, Sellercloud’s shipping application, and Skustack, Sellercloud’s WMS, to improve the efficiency of its warehouse and shipping operations. Stewart enjoys Shipbridge’s practicality, noting that you can add dimensions and weight information at the SKU level, so you don’t have to input that information every time you ship an order. On top of that, Shipbridge also helps Palatize generate shipping rates based on their carriers. “It really makes it a lot easier and quicker to be an effective merchant fulfilled shipper,” said Stewart.
After Sellercloud
A year after starting with Sellercloud, Palatize has seen some significant changes. “The ability to adapt the system with our needs, and that’s really been very helpful to us and our growth,” Stewart summarized. Sellercloud helped Palatize grow the merchant fulfilled side of its business, enabling it to expand to new marketplaces with exceptional growth on Walmart and eBay. “We’ve really seen a lot of growth in terms of merchant fulfilled products,” said Stewart, pleased that they managed to achieve their initial goal with Sellercloud.
In fact, Palatize experienced so much growth with Sellercloud that they built their own warehouse. “The warehouse will be 25,000 square foot on the ground, and we’re moving out of a 6,000 square foot [warehouse] right now,” said Stewart, and they only expect more growth to come. Stewart adds that they expect to leverage Sellercloud and Skustack to the fullest in the new warehouse, highlighting the effectiveness of the combination in managing inventory, tracking POs and expiration dates, and the order fulfillment process.
Stewart highly recommends Sellercloud. “I would say that Sellercloud is definitely a tool that you should utilize sooner than later,” he said. He adds that one of the great things about Sellercloud is that its pricing depends on your order volume. “It’s not like you come in and you’re spending a whole lot of money.”
A crucial reason Palatize plans to stay with Sellercloud is that, unlike other e-commerce solutions, it changes with the industry. “Seeing Sellercloud constantly evolve has really given us the confidence and reassurance that, you know, Sellercloud is the way to go,” said Stewart.
In the long term, Palatize aims to expand to multiple warehouses across different regions, and Stewart is confident that Sellercloud will help the company accomplish this goal. “I really believe that Sellercloud would be able to manage the inventory across multiple warehouses,” he shared, allowing Palatize to become a national supplier rather than an FBA or merchant fulfilled company.
