How LitJoy Crate uses automation to take the headache out of order fulfillment for bundles
LitJoy Crate is a one-stop book-lovers shop offering monthly book box subscriptions and fandom boxes that include products celebrating and fostering a love for literature.
The company came up with the idea to launch themed collections of classic books with staggered release dates in part to build anticipation, and in part because they only had the resources to produce one book at a time.
They wanted to offer customers the option to pre-order the entire collection as a bundle for a limited time, instead of waiting to buy the books one-by-one as they became available for purchase. They also wanted to offer additional pre-order incentive items for the first 100, 500, and 1000 orders.
For Shopify Plus merchant LitJoy Crate, tracking fulfillment for bundled orders took pain-staking manual effort
Stefanie Borys, Digital Strategist and CIO at LitJoy Crate, says that after exploring a couple of solutions, they used an app that would keep the order in one unbreakable bundle (so customers couldn't delete individual products from the order).
However, they soon found that it led to headaches for their fulfillment team. The bundled orders would show up in ShipStation as a single SKU for multiple products that would be shipped over the course of a year or more — meaning there was no way to track what part of the order was being fulfilled now and which parts would be fulfilled at later dates.
They first tried fixing the problem by editing hundreds and hundreds of orders in ShipStation, which involved a lot of manual spreadsheet work to list out each product as an individual line item.
“It took three executives collaborating together for something like seven or eight hours of pretty intense and meticulous work,” said Stefanie. “We exported all of our orders and then expanded on them in a spreadsheet by line item to include what we wanted. And then we used another app to import sub orders. Our fulfillment team then went in ShipStation and matched those orders together, combining the orders and then splitting them. It just was clunky.”
The transition to streamlined bundle fulfillment with Shopify Flow + Edit Order automation
Stefanie then reached out to the Order Editor team. She learned that with our newly introduced Shopify Flow integration for Shopify Plus merchants on our Premium Plus plan, LitJoy Crate could keep the bundle intact for purchase, but then automatically add individual items to the order for fulfillment.
Once an order is placed for a bundle, the Order Editor app sees the SKU and expands it out into the individual line items for fulfillment of that bundle.
“The integration with Shopify Flow makes the whole thing work. It’s like having another staff member or five watching every order that comes in and editing it for us, translating what that order needs to look like for fulfillment.”
Order Editor also makes things clearer for customers in their order status, listing each of the items individually and allowing the customer to see which items have been shipped and when they can expect the other items in the bundle.
One thing LitJoy Crate appreciated was the high level of support the Order Editor team provides in setting everything up.
"In speaking with Tu, I didn't even realize I was speaking with the cofounder and lead product designer,” Stefanie admitted, “and I was really surprised at the depth of knowledge of the sales person before she explained who she was. She walked through everything with me and I really appreciate that support."
A successful launch with less headaches and more possibilities for streamlining the order fulfillment process
LitJoy Crate recently launched a second classic book collection — their Whimsy Collection — and successfully sold about 700 bundles in addition to 300 individual copies of the first book in the collection. The launch was a success with none of the issues they had experienced before installing Order Editor.
Stefanie called the end result “kind of a miracle,” and stated that
"All the orders are set up correctly and ready to go throughout the next year. It’s just a lot less work. Order Editor is more expensive than any of our other apps. But having gone through one round of sales without it, and knowing the headache that ensues and just so many opportunities for error, it is absolutely worth it.”
“All the orders are set up correctly and ready to go throughout the next year. It’s just a lot less work. Order Editor is more expensive than any of our other apps. But having gone through one round of sales without it, and knowing the headache that ensues and just so many opportunities for error, it is absolutely worth it.”
Using Order Editor has meant LitJoy Crate has been able to reduce the burden on their fulfillment and customer service teams and has avoided adding hours of extra work per week onto their plates.
Stefanie described how using the app has helped to reduce tensions among departments:
“Processing the orders was very easy for the fulfillment team. All they have to do is check off the item that they're shipping and leave the rest. We’re also anticipating a benefit for our customer service team. They’re already so inundated with questions, so whatever we can do to clearly communicate with customers as much as possible makes it easier for our customer service team.”
LitJoy Crate has only begun to explore other options with Shopify automation through Order Editor and discover exciting new possibilities, such as simplifying the process to give a free product to customers who join up as a community member. Right now the customer has to follow a special link, then log in to verify they qualify, and then add it to a purchase so they don't have to pay shipping.
"That's all stuff that can just be handled easily and automated with Order Editor,” Stefanie said. “It can just check for those things and add the free product onto their order. It's going to make the customer experience much smoother and they can get surprised by getting the free thing."
According to Stefanie, having Order Editor in their tool belt allows them to create offerings that cater to their customers’ love for limited time offers without adding headaches for their fulfillment or customer service departments.
“Our core customers have quite a bit of FOMO,” she said. “They will set timers and when we launch something, we sell out in a few hours and they're like, ‘I'm so glad I got it.’ So we're always coming up with new ideas and new ways to sell and that kind of stuff. ‘Let's make a collection. Let's pre-sell the whole thing and ship it over the course of a year.’
The burden of change for your departments and revamping how you're doing things constantly can be exhausting. Order Editor allows you to get more creative with your offerings if you invite that element of FOMO to your business and make it easy for all your departments to get onboard.”
