PetFlow uses SnapFulfil to compete with the big dogs

The challenge

Prior to using SnapFulfil, US-based subscription commerce retailer PetFlow relied on a 3PL to manage its entire fulfilment operation. However, when the company experienced an explosion of growth – sales increased 10 percent monthly – its 3PL partner could not keep up and the ball began to drop on quality and customer service.

Looking to rectify these issues quickly, and lower costs too, PetFlow decided to take order fulfilment in-house, procuring its own warehouse in New Jersey and embarking on a search for the right cloud-based WMS.

PetFlow needed affordable warehouse management software that would be flexible in terms of customisation to handle expansion down the road.

It also needed a WMS provider that could seamlessly integrate with its proprietary website software, its ERP system and transition its existing manual processes – like a home-grown, Google Doc driven inventory management system – into one structured platform.

The solution

Presented with a blank canvas, the SnapFulfil team was charged with transforming PetFlow's newly acquired, empty warehouse into a highly optimised distribution centre.

SnapFulfil's implementation team recommended a basic warehouse layout and flow, which could allow for more complexity through configuration of the system's rules as PetFlow became more comfortable with the warehouse management system.

Within six weeks, all of PetFlow's manual order fulfilment processes were transitioned to SnapFulfil. Its proprietary system and ERP were also successfully integrated. This meant PetFlow employees could access critical order fulfilment information in real-time from a central application.

The benefits

PetFlow's active SKUs have more than doubled to 10,000, it is shipping orders nationwide and competing against the likes of Chewy.com and Amazon's pet e-commerce site Wag. All the while, the SnapFulfil cloud WMS has stayed a steadfast staple of PetFlow's warehouse, working to ensure order fulfilment processes continued to perform at the highest level through the company's growth.

One area where SnapFulfil has been critical to PetFlow is inventory management. Through SnapFulfil, PetFlow has established a replenishment system to prevent inefficient picking from higher locations in its warehouse, which are up to 30 ft. SnapFulfil tracks and monitors inventory levels of fast-moving products and assigns a task when more inventory needs to be moved from higher shelves to the warehouse floor. SnapFulfil also helps PetFlow know when to increase the batch size of a pick assignment based on the height of the pick tasks.

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