Turbocharging Ecommerce Fulfillment with Descartes OzLink™ Mobile

Sailrite provides sewing supplies and services across multiple “sew-it-yourself” niches. Aiming to fuel growth and capitalize on its NetSuite investment, the company implemented Descartes OzLink Mobile to automate and accelerate ecommerce order fulfillment. By eliminating error-prone, inefficient paper-based picking processes, Sailrite doubled its fulfillment speed, reduced customer support requirements, and grew by more than 250 percent.

“With paper-based picking, it took us twice as long to pick an order, accuracy was suffering and backorders were onerous to manage. Now, the automated workflow from the time an order is placed on our website to the time it appears in the picking queue through to shipping execution is invaluable. In a nutshell, with the Descartes mobile solution in the warehouse, we are much faster with fewer employees and we don’t make as many mistakes.”

Matt Grant, Vice President, Sailrite

Company Profile Sailrite Retailer of Sewing Supplies for Boaters

Descartes Solutions Descartes OzLink™ Mobile

About the Client Family-owned and operated since 1969, Sailrite helps Do-It-Yourselfers sew at home and on the water. An online resource for fabric, tools, sewing supplies, how-to videos and its own brand of sewing machines, the Indiana- based retailer equips people to sew for their sailboats, powerboats, pontoons, outdoor living and home décor.

Quick Overview

Challenge Paper Processes Thwarting Growth

Solution Automated Workflow Drives Efficiency

Results - Heightened Growth - Enhanced Customer Service - Doubled Picking Speed - Increased Productivity

R E A D T H E F U L L S T O R Y

CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY | Sailrite

With a vast collection of more than 6,000 products—measured in units of inches, yards, feet and square feet, and sold in packs of multiple quantities—cumbersome, time-consuming paper-based processes were compromising order fulfillment. The “sew-it-yourself” specialist’s manual systems hampered productivity, mismanaged backorders and diminished accuracy, ultimately negatively impacting customer service. Sailrite sought a mobile solution, fully integrated with NetSuite, to drive operational efficiency, eliminate costly errors, and support future expansion and growth by streamlining fulfillment.

Depending on the season, Sailrite ships 300 to 800 packages per day. With paper-based manual picking, the company was struggling to efficiently fulfill growing ecommerce sales and manage backorders for its extensive inventory. Seamlessly integrated with Sailrite’s NetSuite enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Descartes OzLink Mobile drives efficiency and precision throughout the fulfillment process, significantly enhancing customer service and boosting the bottom line.

“In the past, we had to spend a lot of time looking at data in the back end of NetSuite to make sure we didn’t lose any paperwork. The Descartes OzLink solution eliminates the paper chaos. We now pick following a logical walking path with RF guns and it makes the process much more efficient and accurate. It is really the backbone of our warehouse,” said Matt Grant, Vice President of Sailrite.

Descartes tailored the Sailrite solution to seamlessly handle the order fulfillment complexities of its 6,000+ products while ensuring a simple, intuitive mobile system that makes training new staff in the warehouse easy. “New employees can be effectively picking orders within an hour or two,” noted Brian Jansing, Sailrite’s General Manager. “Plus, we can grade our orders per difficulty, enabling us to assign more complex orders to experienced pickers.”

With increased accuracy and speed, customer support calls declined and Sailrite was able to reduce the ratio of support staff to order volumes so people could focus on higher value works and less administrative tasks. “Success to us is more orders, more packages out the door, and less people getting calls to handle problems. And the Descartes OzLink solution has done that for us,” said Grant.

Grant added, “We knew we needed to move away from paper picking in order to grow. With Descartes, we can pick twice as many orders and we’ve grown over two and half times in size by automating our fulfillment.”

Challenge: Paper Processes Thwarting Growth

Solution: Automated Workflow Drives Efficiency

CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY | Sailrite

Results:

Heightened Growth By replacing time-consuming manual processes with automated fulfillment, Sailrite grew by 250 percent. Seamless integration with NetSuite drives efficiency and data accuracy, supporting seasonal peaks and streamlining management of backorders.

Enhanced Customer Service With a faster, paperless and precise order picking process, Sailrite can get the correct orders out the door and into customers’ hands at a faster rate. Customer support calls have declined after implementing the Descartes solution.

Doubled Picking Speed By eliminating inefficient paper-based practices, Sailrite can pick orders twice as fast with Descartes OzLink Mobile. Pickers use barcode scanning with RF guns to accelerate order fulfillment and ensure order accuracy to reduce time- consuming mispicks.

Increased Productivity With Descartes, Sailrite has decreased the ratio of both support staff and picking staff to order volumes. In the customer support department, increased accuracy and fulfillment speed resulted in fewer customer issues and calls.

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