Winc reduces errors and improves customer service with a Tier 1 cloud WMS

The challenge

A flawless fulfillment operation is at the heart of e-commerce wine club, Winc's commitment to delighting its customers. However, the company's existing paper-based warehouse management system had led to high levels of inaccuracy, both in its inventory and fulfillment operations, while inefficiencies in the operation also meant that it was struggling to get the required volume through its DC.

Kjiel Carlson, Winc's VP of Operations says: "Winc has established a leadership position in the wine club market and we needed a leader in the WMS solution space to drive our fulfillment operations for the future. We needed a partner and not just a vendor to help guide our business with best practices and recommendations for improving our operational processes, supported by a best of breed, Tier 1 WMS which can scale to meet our projected growth."

The solution

Following a thorough review of WMS vendors and solutions, Winc (previously known as Club W) selected the SnapFufil cloud WMS. Kjiel Carlson says: "SnapFulfil was the only offering that met our criteria for a true partner and could provide us with a low cost of ownership, movement away from paper to RF-directed processes, as well as real-time management of our inventory to order fulfillment."

The benefits

Since implementing SnapFulfil, Winc has grown by 800%. At the same time:

  • Cost per order has reduced by $0.05
  • Error rates reduced by 5% to near perfect 0.03%
  • 'Ghost orders', i.e., shipped orders for which Winc had no record of origin, 2% to 0.05%

Thanks to efficiencies driven by the WMS, Winc has also been able to stay in the same facility, saving an estimated $150,000.

Kjiel Carlson says: "I could not have been able to handle that order growth had it been on my old WMS. And right now, we're in the process of spinning up a second fulfillment centre with SnapFulfil to handle triple the volume of what we do here. It really speaks to how much we love the system and how much we think it's going to be part of our future.

"SnapFulfil is not a vendor of ours – they're a partner and that's the best way I can sum it up."

The future

While SnapFulfil has helped Winc to achieve its objective to ensure that customers receive the right order, every time, the two companies are now working together to further optimize the order picking process and enhance labor productivity within the warehouse.

The SnapFulfil implementation and associated improvements also provide a blueprint for a best-of-breed warehousing operation which Winc can replicate in additional locations as it continues to grow and diversify. The first of these, on the US East Coast, has already gone live.

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