How two brands use eCommerce automation to hone their order fulfillment process
Implementing the tech for selling bundles and promotions can be challenging even in the best of times. As the Head of Digital Operations for not one but two Shopify Plus brands, Ellie understands this better than anyone.
Knifewear and Kent of Inglewood are sharp-edged Canadian blade companies specializing in Japanese knives and shaving supplies, respectively.
Ellie is integral to the brands' operations with running both websites, handling customer queries, fulfilling orders, creating graphics, managing inventory, setting up bundles and promotions…we're tired only listing all her responsibilities! So, of course, Ellie needs a Shopify bundle app that works just as hard as she does.
"We had a different inventory management system that allowed us to bundle things [outside of the Shopify admin] and then sell them on the websites, but that had its pain points," said Ellie. "We used another Shopify bundles app, which was pretty good, but since we had multiple locations, [the app] couldn’t assign the order to different locations, which caused problems."
During the start of and throughout the pandemic, Knifewear and Kent of Inglewood have seen explosive revenue growth on their online stores, going from processing 40 orders per day to over 100. This made fixing their problems with running their promotion and kit/bundle offers urgent. 🚨
“Have you ever been in a situation where you have your pick list with only the name of the bundle, and you try to remember what’s in the bundle and select and pack everything up but realize you forgot a bundle item on the pick list?”
The right Shopify bundle app ✅
According to Ellie, "An important part of understanding a system is actually to work it, so I've worked in the warehouse and was able to see the problems [with bundles] first hand.”
Human error in any repetitive process is inevitable. When you're running bundle and kitting fulfillment, problems occur with product picking and getting the correct bundle items shipped. Customer queries build-up, the brand image suffers, efficiencies plummet and workplace stress skyrockets.
“There’s a couple of different ways we use Edit Order’s automations. For Kent of Inglewood, when a customer buys a safety razor, they get a free packet of blades.”
Ellie was looking to automate Shopify processes to scale both Kent of Inglewood and Knifewear. Both brands have been using Edit Order by Cleverific for a few years and recognized an opportunity with the Shopify app to help their business woes.
"Online, it was hard to do because adding the free blades to the order was manual until we had automation. [Edit Order] triggers the flow, so whenever someone places an order, the packet of blades automatically got added."
With Knifewear, Ellie uses the Shopify bundle app, Edit Order, for selling bundles and kits with the bundle expansion feature. "Before we had to write notes that would help people remember what was in each bundle, sometimes you get it wrong and send the wrong stuff," she said. Their campaigns started last spring at the start of the pandemic. Before Ellie started using Edit Order for the processes, they saw a pile-up of customer service messages regarding order errors.
Chop it up to automation on Shopify 🔪
"Having the automation tool opens us up to new possibilities because the inventory aspects of selling bundles are daunting, and you want to never do it because of the pain points that now we can overcome," said Ellie.
Edit Order created automation workflows for Shopify Flow that shave off hours of manual work and team training. Instead of inviting picklist errors, Ellie sets this workflow once to expand bundles into their individual SKUs automatically.
"It relieves stress; there’s one less place where a problem can occur. It’s like traffic calming! Stuff like this helps our people work more efficiently. No more internal struggles when you’re trying to get orders out the door," Ellie raved.
Bundle fulfillment automation is available using Edit Order + Shopify Flow. As long as your automation workflow is on, any bundles you create will automatically expand into the SKUs you need when your customer sends in an order. If you're curious about other ways that you can use bundles to enhance your business strategy, read more about 6 different bundling strategies.
Ready to streamline your bundling?
You’re only a few steps away from experiencing bundle fulfillment automation for yourself. Get detailed instructions with visual examples on our how-to blog!
Have more questions about Shopify Flow? It doesn’t stop at bundle fulfillment. Check out our FAQ to learn more about what else you can automate with Shopify Flow, including workflows to streamline your promos. For additional details, feel free to reach out to us at support@editorder.net.
