H2rOse, a fast-growing beverage company based in Los Angeles, was facing challenges with their logistics and supply chain management. The company relies on key distributor and retail partners to deliver their products nationwide. One of the main performance metrics that suppliers must adhere to with these channel partners is on-time product delivery to distribution centers. However, with traditional LTL and PTL providers, delivery dates and times have low adherence rates or are simply not provided at the time of scheduling shipments. This situation left H2rOse dealing with a lot of uncertainties and gray areas in their operations where transparency, time specifications, and guarantees for delivery could make or break a relationship with channel partners. Delays or missed shipments would lead to hefty fees that could take weeks to resolve with many hours of manpower tied up in calls and emails working toward a resolution. With so much tied to specified delivery dates and on-time delivery, H2rOse was constantly balancing premium delivery costs with required shipment time frames.

Spill Tackle, a manufacturer of industrial-grade absorbents, faced a significant challenge in their sales process due to the lack of upfront knowledge of shipping costs. The company's business model is based on moving products from manufacturing sites to distribution and customer sites. However, managing freight became a point of friction rather than a revenue driver. To close deals instantly, Spill Tackle’s inside sales team needed to know the cost of shipping upfront. With most of their shipments being six pallets or more, getting shipment quotes for Partial Truckload (PTL) was a cumbersome process involving multiple calls and emails, often taking up to two hours. This delay could potentially lead to lost sales.

Ergomotion was single sourcing their parcel shipping service with UPS. They used UPS’ powerful on-premise solution, UPS Worldship, to process orders as they were created and synchronized from their ERP. While this enabled Ergomotion to grow and scale their parcel operation, it also limited their productivity and ability to drive down costs. They were limited to only using UPS, regardless of how their customer concentration and order processing need changed over time. Ergomotion sought out a platform to reduce costs, increase efficiency and offer the flexibility they needed to support a growing, thriving operation.

The customer, a wholesale distributor and manufacturer of home maintenance products, was using multiple shipping systems, including FedEx Ship Manager, UPS WorldShip, and stamps.com for its high-volume shipping to retailers and professional installation partners across North America. The company aimed to ensure all customers’ orders are shipped out in a timely and accurate fashion, and was looking for a more efficient and streamlined system to consolidate its shipping processes under one solution. With two separate warehouses shipping its product, the company looked for a solution to provide more effective packing solutions and standardized shipping rules to improve accuracy. As the company’s shipments vary in size and weight, it needed a packing solution to automatically identify the most appropriate packing materials for each shipment. Moreover, the solution needed to integrate with NetSuite.

POLYWOOD, a company that manufactures outdoor furniture from recycled materials, was experiencing rapid growth and needed a shipping solution that could scale with its expansion. The company was manually processing every order, which was a barrier to growth. The IT department was spending a significant amount of time supporting the team to ensure labels were printing out at the correct times and that user settings were accurate for the numerous systems they were using. POLYWOOD also needed a shipping solution that would integrate seamlessly with Acumatica, their ERP system, and sync order and shipment fulfillment data.

JL Marine Systems, a designer of industry-leading boat control technology, including the Power-Pole® shallow-water anchors, was facing major packing and shipping headaches that were affecting the company’s bottom line. With a catalog featuring hundreds of diverse products — some oddly shaped and large, some loose, others pre-packed — order shipping costs were often difficult to estimate upfront, which often resulted in dimensional discrepancies and price adjustments from carriers. This meant that JL Marine had to either absorb these costs or rebill their customers - neither a good option. In addition, JL Marine sells both directly to customers and through its network of 3,500 dealers around the world - which means the company receives a constant stream of unique orders — from single-item purchases to bulk orders of large, difficult-to-package items. With the manual processes they were using for packing and shipping, JL Marine was spending too many man-hours fulfilling orders and leaving margin on the table because they lacked the automation tools to accurately estimate costs. They needed an intelligent logistics solution that would provide real-time rates and packing optimization.

Everything But the House (EBTH) was looking to expand from a regional business to national coverage. However, their logistics solution was not equipped to support a national bidder base or the shipping needs of their diverse auction inventory. Their distribution process was manual, with many large auction items marked “local pickup only”. For the few items that could be shipped, EBTH relied on internal employees to call various carriers for quotes, and to pack and send the items themselves. Furthermore, there was no way to provide shoppers with accurate shipping rates during the bidding experience. This process excluded many potential bidders from participating in an auction, in turn limiting auction values and revenue. Scaling with their existing system would be slow and costly: each new market would mean more time on the phone, additional personnel, and uncertain costs.

Viyet was faced with the challenge of closing the gap between the price they quoted their customers for shipping and the amount they were ultimately billed by the provider. The company had no way to accurately pass along the cost of shipping to their customers. The process was very hands-on, manual, and time-consuming. Two team members were dedicated to organizing shipments, calling at least three different providers to ensure competitive pricing, and then handholding the shipment every step of the way. Viyet’s margin suffered on most orders because the company had no way to accurately pass along the cost of shipping to their customers.

Greenlane, a global distributor of accessories for smoke shops, dispensary channels, and wholesale customers, was facing challenges due to its sustained growth both domestically and internationally. The company had outgrown their previous shipping software which was built for small businesses. The software was locally installed and worked with five other locally installed softwares, making it unmanageable for a company of Greenlane's size. The absence of a streamlined shipping software meant spending time on manual steps that were driving up fulfillment times. Many of Greenlane’s products require domestic and Canadian HAZMAT labels, but there was no automated system for label generation. The team was forced to use a connector software to pass order data over to separate carrier platforms, all to generate a label. Scan-scan-print was no different - the team had been forced to jump between multiple systems which resulted in more wasted time. Greenlane needed a shipping solution that would address their expanding market presence, which was restricted due to the limitations of their previous shipping connector.

Silver Oak Cellars, a California winery, was facing a significant challenge with its outdated freight calculation system. The manual system often resulted in incorrect shipping charges for customers. To maintain a positive customer experience, Silver Oak chose to absorb these incorrect costs, which was negatively impacting their bottom line. The manual calculation was difficult to maintain and the company was not recouping enough freight charges to cover what they were being charged by FedEx. As Silver Oak continued to grow, the lack of an automated API solution for rating was becoming a significant barrier to their ability to scale.

The customer, a government procurement and logistics contractor, was facing a number of challenges as the company was growing. They were unable to accurately assess shipping costs on a per-transaction basis, which was negatively impacting the customer experience due to inefficient tracking capabilities. Mislabeling shipments to military facilities could lead to substantial fines and potentially result in removal from military procurement programs. The absence of effective shipping management was negatively impacting the entire shipping process.

Sotheby’s Home (formerly Viyet) was faced with the challenge of closing the gap between the price they quoted their customers for shipping and the amount they were ultimately billed by the provider. The company had no way to accurately pass along the cost of shipping to their customers. The process was very hands-on, manual, and time-consuming. Two team members were dedicated to organizing shipments, calling at least three different providers to ensure competitive pricing, and handholding the shipment every step of the way. Sotheby’s Home margin suffered on most orders because the company had no way to accurately pass along the cost of shipping to their customers.

Hammer Nutrition, a health supplement provider, experienced a surge in orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their previous shipping software, NetSuite Shipping, was unable to keep up with the increased demand, limiting the company to shipping only 300-400 orders per day. The company faced several challenges including slow order processing times due to heavy reliance on manual processes, inability to compare shipping rates, slow onboarding time for new workers, and lack of cartonization or packing optimization capabilities. These challenges were preventing the company from getting more orders out of the door quickly and accurately.

Maxima Racing Oils, a renowned brand in the power sports racing industry, was grappling with warehouse management and inventory visibility issues due to its legacy ERP and paper-based spreadsheets. The company's sales surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbating these issues and highlighting the need for more modern ERP and WMS solutions. Maxima's operation was riddled with pain points, including the inability to generate reports without the system freezing, lack of visibility into raw material stock levels, stock committed, and stock allocated, and no live correlation of raw material inventory needed for a work order to produce finished goods. Other issues included the lack of automatic creation of bills of lading (BOLs) and the error-prone, human-based system of cycling through the oldest inventory first for both raw materials and finished goods.

Weisser Distributing was looking for ways to speed up its fulfillment process, automate various manual processes and gain operational efficiencies. The company’s previous shipping software did not provide automated rate shopping and instead, warehouse employees were selecting shipping rates - resulting in unnecessarily high shipping costs. With a product mix of 11,000 SKUs, the company wanted an automated tool to relieve warehouse workers of “shipping fatigue” from having to decide the best shipping option per product/SKU and streamline the entire process. Moreover, the company had specific needs for shipping policies and rules to identify the best carrier to fit specific requirements, such as hazardous material and large, heavy products. Most importantly, Weisser Distributing needed a system that would integrate easily with NetSuite, its ERP solution. As the company operates out of two locations in South Dakota and Nevada, it needed consistent processes and communication channels to conduct fulfillment from multiple warehouses. With such a large product mix it was essential that product details and dimensions were automatically syncing to and from NetSuite.

In 2008, Kalalou, like many wholesale companies at the time, was manually receiving and processing inventory with paper-based systems. It needed a better way to allocate inventory and work with back orders and releases. In addition, the company was looking to improve how it dealt with containers with multiple purchase orders, receiving, and to better manage overall warehouse operations, including cube utilization, efficient rack positioning, stock rotation, and inventory placement. The company has four onsite warehouses and one offsite, and routinely maintains approximately 80 trailers of merchandise onsite. Because it has so many yard-based trailers in addition to its main warehouses, the company faced issues with replenishment to and from offsite facilities and yard-based trailers. Manual cycle counting also affected the accuracy of inventory quantities.

Kalalou, a leading designer and supplier of home accents, garden decor, and gifts, was facing challenges in managing its warehouse operations. The company delivers its products via three channels: wholesale to big home décor companies and brick-and-mortar boutiques and gift shops, direct-to-consumers via its eCommerce store, At West End, and drop-shipping for D2C customers. During the peak months of January and September through November, Kalalou brings on temporary workers to ensure they keep up with order demands. The company needed a solution that could provide visibility into auto-replenishment, improve the productivity of the warehouse team, and automate processes to reduce the learning curve for temporary workers.

BEDGEAR, a leading performance bedding manufacturer and distributor, was facing several challenges with its shipping operations. The company was using a shipping software that was not advanced enough to meet their business needs. They were unable to automatically compare carrier rates or transit times, making it difficult to make the best shipping decisions for their customers. Shipping errors were also a significant issue. The company only had one item verification process, which took place when the item was picked. This manual process resulted in infrequent but costly incorrect products being shipped. Another challenge was orders being sent to the wrong address. When an order would come into NetSuite, the team had to manually type or copy and paste the address into a carrier portal, which sometimes resulted in an order being sent to the wrong address. This was not only an inefficient use of time but also resulted in additional costs for reshipping the correct products and negatively impacted customer sentiment.

Midwest Equipment Sales (MWE) was facing challenges with its former shipping software. The software required frequent, costly customizations due to its limitations and was not adding new carriers. The sales team had to go through a convoluted set of steps and clicks to get a shipping rate quote and create an estimate for customers, all while holding them on the phone. MWE also experienced issues and limitations with bulk shipping. The previous software could only batch process five labels at a time, which was very tedious when MWE ships hundreds of orders every day.

Redcat Racing, a premier name for gas, nitro, and electric-powered remote-controlled (RC) cars, faced a significant challenge as it transitioned from a business-to-business operation to a direct-to-consumer eCommerce company. The company's pick, pack, and ship strategy was not equipped to handle a large number of small orders, leading to frequent shipping errors. The manual process of checking and packing orders often resulted in customers receiving incorrect or incomplete orders, damaging the company's reputation and causing financial losses. Additionally, the company's order processing times were negatively impacted by a lack of integration between their shipping software and NetSuite, leading to delays in loading shipping labels.

During the early days of COVID-19, with lockdowns, new work-from-home situations, and virtual school, demand for bikes had never been higher. For Retrospec, that meant orders increased rapidly, and its former pack and ship process just wasn’t going to cut it. Serving its network of almost 500 dealers as well as Amazon customers, Retrospec needed a streamlined and automated way to keep up with orders. The previous pack and ship process required multiple clicks and scans to process just one shipment, which translated into a lot of time and human resources to fulfill orders. Retrospec also wanted to be able to rely on an automated system to rate shop for shipping rather than a manual, people-intensive process. Most of their orders weren’t complex, in fact, 90% ship in their own containers, are pre-packed, and Retrospec already had the dimensions needed to rate shop, but when the orders would get to the pack table, they slowed down the entire process.

WrestlingMart, a large wrestling specialty store, was facing challenges with its shipping and fulfillment process. The company had already invested in scalable technology for its business, but it needed an advanced solution that could integrate with NetSuite without causing performance delays. The team was dealing with shipping errors that were costing them time and money. These errors included shipping incorrect products, selecting incorrect shipping times, and shipping with incorrect rates due to the lack of rate shopping functionality. The company wanted a solution that would be easy for employees to learn, provide customers with a better tracking experience, and quickly create business rules for choosing shipping options.

The customer, a global distributor of accessories for smoke shops, dispensary channels, and wholesale customers, had outgrown their previous shipping software which was built for small businesses. The absence of a streamlined shipping software meant spending time on manual steps that were driving up fulfillment times. Many of the customer’s products require domestic and Canadian HAZMAT labels, but there was no automated system for label generation. The team was forced to use a connector software to pass order data over to separate carrier platforms, all to generate a label. Scan-scan-print was no different - the team had been forced to jump between multiple systems which resulted in more wasted time. The customer needed a shipping solution that would address their expanding market presence, which was restricted due to the limitations of their previous shipping connector.

As Springfield Leather's order volume increased and the company prepared for the next stage of growth, it realized it could no longer afford long lead times on order processing or a lack of automation in its fulfillment process. The company implemented NetSuite ERP and the NetSuite SuiteCommerce eCommerce shopping cart module in 2016, but its previous shipping solution’s integration was lackluster and it had limited options for customization without intensive IT or development resources. Springfield Leather initiated the search for a new shipping solution that not only integrated seamlessly with NetSuite and SuiteCommerce, but also featured a user-friendly interface that didn’t require additional IT or development support. The perfect solution needed to offer accurate multi-carrier rating in the shopping cart, automation via dynamic business logic and exceptional customer support.

WRS Group, a manufacturer of 3D models, print products, and promotional materials for health education and health professionals, was facing challenges with shipping rating accuracy and timely quotes due to a lack of automation in its fulfillment process. The company relied on a rate table that was several decades old to determine freight rates based on the dollar value of each order for its customers. The quoting process was completed manually, order by order, sometimes taking up to two days. This resulted in a poor customer experience and loss of business. WRS achieved a slight improvement by using NetSuite’s native real-time dimensional weights feature, but as freight was still negatively impacting profits, it began looking for a complete solution. Additionally, the company was facing a workforce transition with long-term employees retiring and a tight talent pool. The company needed a shipping solution that would help it fulfill a higher volume of orders accurately without requiring more workers.

Concrete Countertop Solutions (CCS) was experiencing rapid growth in its eCommerce business, which was further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company was using Shopify as its source system and order management system, but needed a compatible shipping solution that could handle a higher volume of orders and more complex shipping processes. The company's order volumes increased during the pandemic, but staffing did not. CCS needed a solution that supported both parcel and LTL carriers and could help its limited number of warehouse employees process and fulfill orders quickly. Additionally, CCS wanted to perform rating in its shopping cart rather than charging shipping as a separate line item.

Compass Coffee, with 16 locations and a rapidly growing eCommerce business, needed a shipping solution that would integrate with NetSuite and support its eCommerce fulfillment requirements. The company ships nationwide and guarantees next-day shipping for all orders, but its order fulfillment processes weren’t automated and they lacked visibility into its eCommerce orders. Compass Coffee strives to deliver an exceptional experience from the time an order is placed until it arrives at the customer’s doorstep, which means delivering an accurate order on time, every time, and offering flexible shipping options. Prior to adopting ShipHawk, Compass Coffee’s team spent a disproportionate amount of time on manual order fulfillment and verifying accuracy instead of growing the company’s eCommerce division.

APG acquired Fellers, Interwest Distribution and DigiCut within a matter of months to establish a full-service signs and graphics wholesale distribution organization that would provide everything from premium vinyl and paint protection film to the software needed to cut them. Each business brought unique strengths and capabilities to the partnership, but leadership recognized that utilizing each of the business’ disparate systems wasn’t going to work and as a result, a unified approach with an ERP and fulfillment solution across all brands was required. The company initiated a search for a shipping solution within the NetSuite ecosystem after selecting NetSuite as its ERP. The ideal solution needed to integrate with NetSuite, enable a quick, easy and accurate shipping experience and have the ability to support Fellers’ 40 warehouses out of the box.

Farmhouse Pottery, a company that creates handcrafted pottery and home decor items, faced a significant increase in customer orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company needed solutions to successfully grow and scale its operations. They also needed a better shipping solution that would integrate seamlessly with NetSuite, their ERP. Another critical consideration for Farmhouse Pottery was being able to rate shop and find the best carrier for each product and shipment, at the right time, in the right sized box. As most of its products are extremely fragile and each shipment has a unique size and weight, the company needed flexibility and the means to identify the best shipping rate to meet customer expectations.

Hyper Racing, a company that sells micro sprint race cars, fuel injection systems, and parts/accessories, was facing a challenge in its shipping process. With three warehouses and approximately 8,000 SKUs, the company needed an advanced shipping solution to increase productivity and reduce shipping costs without hiring more employees. The weights and dimensions of Hyper Racing’s products are incredibly varied, and the small warehouse team had to rush through the packing process, often grabbing whatever carton they knew would fit the contents of the order just to get it out the door faster. Another challenge was that there wasn’t enough time to accurately and manually rate shop shipping options for the hundreds of packages shipped per day. As a result, Hyper Racing was often paying for more expensive carriers or an unnecessary shipping method.