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Petmania Case Study
Petmania - Venturing into eCommerce with Shipster & Swan Retail
-
Swan Retail Integration - 133% Productivity Boost
- Full Courier & Tracking Automation
- 19% Revenue Increase
Petmania, part of the O’Keeffe Group, is Ireland’s largest specialist pet retailer.
It boasts 17 bricks and mortar branches and a web store, all served by its distribution centre in Kilkenny which supports orders of 31,000 per year.
It boasts 17 bricks and mortar branches and a web store, all served by its distribution centre in Kilkenny which supports orders of 31,000 per year.
The Challenge
Petmania has a long standing relationship with Swan Retail System, benefiting from the all-in-one solution’s ability to manage merchandising, containerisation, CRM, integrated stores and customer accounts.
In 2020, Swan supported the launch of Petmania’s venture into ecommerce, as it launched a webstore out of its Kilkenny branch, using one courier for its deliveries.
As orders began to ramp up to around 350 a week, challenges began to emerge, specifically the lack of integration between its web ordering system and the courier portal.
It meant the web fulfilment manager was spending seven hours a week cutting and pasting web orders between two software platforms rather than picking orders. This human intervention resulted in occasional errors, which increased the workload on the customer services manager, who was also being called upon to help with order fulfilment.
Dermot Tobin, Systems Administrator at O'Keeffes, explained:
“Quite early on from the launch of our web store, we found the team were spending far too long on the monotonous task of moving data from one place to another. Naturally, small errors would crop up with addresses, leading to complaints and extra work.
“As orders grew, so did the pain, meaning our customer services manager would have to help keep on top of order picking. That left her working late to try and catch up with customer enquiries. It was unsustainable.”
Petmania has a long standing relationship with Swan Retail System, benefiting from the all-in-one solution’s ability to manage merchandising, containerisation, CRM, integrated stores and customer accounts.
In 2020, Swan supported the launch of Petmania’s venture into ecommerce, as it launched a webstore out of its Kilkenny branch, using one courier for its deliveries.
As orders began to ramp up to around 350 a week, challenges began to emerge, specifically the lack of integration between its web ordering system and the courier portal.
It meant the web fulfilment manager was spending seven hours a week cutting and pasting web orders between two software platforms rather than picking orders. This human intervention resulted in occasional errors, which increased the workload on the customer services manager, who was also being called upon to help with order fulfilment.
Dermot Tobin, Systems Administrator at O'Keeffes, explained:
“Quite early on from the launch of our web store, we found the team were spending far too long on the monotonous task of moving data from one place to another. Naturally, small errors would crop up with addresses, leading to complaints and extra work.
“As orders grew, so did the pain, meaning our customer services manager would have to help keep on top of order picking. That left her working late to try and catch up with customer enquiries. It was unsustainable.”
The Solution
Petmania turned to Swan for help and they had a solution at their fingertips, having launched a partnership with Shipster in 2022.
The integration creates a seamless end-to-end process for the business. It means web orders are automatically booked in with the courier with no manual intervention.
As soon as the order is dispatched, Shipster processes the order data, runs its rules engine, places a booking with the courier, and prints out a shipping label and a packing slip. Shipter then contacts the Swan server and updates the order with the courier tracking number.
Shipster rules are useful as it means Swan can also print out a Collect-In-Store label to assist customer services where orders are to be picked up in the store.
Other useful features include exception management whereby, should a problem be encountered booking a shipment in at the packing bench, a packer can skip and print a record for the supervisor to resolve. This keeps the warehouse and packing bench productive, should any complications arise.
Petmania turned to Swan for help and they had a solution at their fingertips, having launched a partnership with Shipster in 2022.
The integration creates a seamless end-to-end process for the business. It means web orders are automatically booked in with the courier with no manual intervention.
As soon as the order is dispatched, Shipster processes the order data, runs its rules engine, places a booking with the courier, and prints out a shipping label and a packing slip. Shipter then contacts the Swan server and updates the order with the courier tracking number.
Shipster rules are useful as it means Swan can also print out a Collect-In-Store label to assist customer services where orders are to be picked up in the store.
Other useful features include exception management whereby, should a problem be encountered booking a shipment in at the packing bench, a packer can skip and print a record for the supervisor to resolve. This keeps the warehouse and packing bench productive, should any complications arise.
The Impact
The integration had an immediate impact.
The solution removed the need for any human intervention, accelerating order fulfilment from an average of 10 minutes to just four.
The Shipster integration has smoothed the way for the organic growth of the webstore, with orders increasing from 510 per week in 2023 to 600.
This has contributed to the company’s overall growth, increasing the webstore’s contribution to total sales by 1% to 5.3%.
Getting those orders picked and out the door quicker has enabled the webstore to achieve its delivery targets and reduce customer complaints about delayed parcels.
These efficiencies have enabled the customer services manager to focus on her job, offering a higher quality of service and responding quicker to queries. This has resulted in an improved Trustpilot score.
Petmania has been impressed with Shipster’s ongoing support.
Dermot said:
“The onboarding was fantastic. It was very clear and simple, and had an immediate impact. We have also really benefited from knowing that someone from Shipster is available when we need them for any technical support.
“The webstore has been a fantastic addition to the business, growing at an impressive rate. Shipster has supported that growth journey and we are keen to work closely with them as we develop our operations.”
The integration had an immediate impact.
The solution removed the need for any human intervention, accelerating order fulfilment from an average of 10 minutes to just four.
The capacity of the web fulfilment manager instantly increased, enabling order processing to increase from 60 per day to 140 - a productivity boost of 133%.
The Shipster integration has smoothed the way for the organic growth of the webstore, with orders increasing from 510 per week in 2023 to 600.
Revenue has increased by 19% during that period, supporting the decision to invest in two new order fulfilment staff, doubling the size of the webstore team.
This has contributed to the company’s overall growth, increasing the webstore’s contribution to total sales by 1% to 5.3%.
Getting those orders picked and out the door quicker has enabled the webstore to achieve its delivery targets and reduce customer complaints about delayed parcels.
These efficiencies have enabled the customer services manager to focus on her job, offering a higher quality of service and responding quicker to queries. This has resulted in an improved Trustpilot score.
Petmania has been impressed with Shipster’s ongoing support.
Dermot said:
“The onboarding was fantastic. It was very clear and simple, and had an immediate impact. We have also really benefited from knowing that someone from Shipster is available when we need them for any technical support.
“The webstore has been a fantastic addition to the business, growing at an impressive rate. Shipster has supported that growth journey and we are keen to work closely with them as we develop our operations.”
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