Vertical
Hobbies & Lifestyle
Software Integrated
Blubolt
Region
UK & Ireland
Company Size
Scale Up
Helping SkateHut to improve warehouse efficiency, for good
About Skatehut
SkateHut is the UK’s leading one stop shop for everything skate. SkateHut started as a family business in 2007 after discovering Heelys on a holiday in Florida. Nine years later they have two stores, three warehouses and over 20,000 products to choose from.
The Challenge
Jamie Blundell, or ‘Dell” as he is known by everyone at SkateHut, is the General Manager of SkateHut, and oversees the day to day running of the warehouse, customer service and their retail store located in Halesowen, West Midlands in England. Dell explains that prior to implementing the Peoplevox solution they were using manual picking and dispatch as well as paper orders for picking and separate courier orders.
Their rapid growth highlighted some key operational weaknesses such as over-selling, mis-picking and stock inaccuracy. All very common problems in a growing business. In order to manage the rising pressure, Dell explains that they had to use buffers for stock, just to allow for overselling. They also had to have dedicated Customer Service Advisors to contact customers regarding out of stock items. It simply became an unscalable process and it put a lot of pressure on the business as a whole, especially at peak times which caused big challenges for them.
SkateHut knew they had reached capacity for orders on a paper based warehouse. Their standard of customer service was paying the price and they needed to change.
The Solution
In December 2013, Gavin Twigg, E-Commerce Manager at SkateHut contacted Peoplevox after looking for a warehouse management system that would integrate with their Sage 200 accounting platform. The SkateHut team wanted to create a strong foundation for continuing to scale their business.
Consultation with the Peoplevox team and meetings with their existing website vendor resulted in Sage 200 being sidelined and a direct connection between their warehouse management system and Blubolt ecommerce platform was established. After visiting one of Peoplevox’s existing clients’ warehouses and seeing the benefits, they decided to go ahead, and the solution was implemented and ready to go in just three months.
The Results
“The Peoplevox WMS Solution helped us gain total stock visibility and restored calm in our warehouse.” – Jamie Sippitts, Warehouse Manager
- Increasing customer satisfaction
The Peoplevox Solution enabled SkateHut to have a full and 100% accurate stock control and eliminate overselling. Cut off for same day dispatch also moved from 3pm to 7pm for next day delivery, allowing them to create a better supported customer journey and service. They are also the only retailer to fulfill orders on a Sunday in their area.
- Improved people management
Another benefit was that they now need fewer Customer Service Advisors and they no longer need expert pickers who know the product well, as everything is now bar coded.
- Creating efficiency
However, the most positive impact the Peoplevox Warehouse Management System has had on their business, is the fact that they have been able to scale to where they want to be and will be able to keep growing without the need to change.
“We can now train someone in half a day, which means we can now have temporary staff up and running a lot quicker and more efficiently.“- Jamie Blundell, Skatehut