Online retailer, The Wright Buy, revolutionises its processes and boosts revenue with OrderWise.
The Wright Buy was established in 2009 as a kitchen appliances reseller for a variety of brands.
Since implementing OrderWise in 2014, the retailer has grown to launch its own Cookology brand, as well as achieve a turnover of £24 million in 2021 up from £7 million.
Watch The Wright Buy’s video case study
We visited The Wright Buy at their premises in Haverhill, Suffolk to discover how the business has transformed since implementing OrderWise in 2014.
The Requirement
Since The Wright Buy launched, the retail industry has become increasingly digitalised. Nevertheless, founder Andrew Wright, always predicted his marketplace would remain and grow online as opposed to the traditional high street.
However, as The Wright Buy’s product portfolio grew, the business then began looking to make investments into a new website with backend functionality to manage more of their operations.
“The plan was to run all of our stock management and courier integration through the backend of the website. When we tried to bolt on eBay and Amazon – it just didn’t work. We needed a full-time stock system, courier integrated systems, something that could run the whole business from one system rather than being pulled from different places.”
Andrew Wright, Director
For The Wright Buy, this wouldn’t be a case of replacing or adapting to a new system. This would be their first-ever ERP and WMS software solution. An investment set to transform The Wright Buy.
“We had literally nothing in place, so we didn’t even have a stock control system or an order processing system. We would adjust our stock levels on our selling platform, manually, every single day.”
James Lotts, General Manager
Implementing OrderWise
After consulting with The Wright Buy about their requirements for a system that would unify and automate their core processes, OrderWise presented the online retailer with their fully integrated ERP and
WMS solution.
OrderWise ERP and WMS software gave The Wright Buy the ability to link all of their business’s core processes, including; stock control, sales order processing, ecommerce, returns and courier integration. The system was also able to integrate with eBay and Amazon as well as other online marketplaces, which was one of The Wright Buy’s biggest necessities.
“All of our sales come through the ecommerce channels. We sell on Amazon and eBay, directly through our own website, and a few other marketplaces.”
Nick Burke, Head of Ecommerce
Courier Integration
In addition to more efficiently processing their sales across multiple platforms, as an online retailer, ensuring despatch and delivery operations run as smoothly as possible is paramount to The Wright Buy. Especially from a customer service perspective.
“Without customer service, we’re not going to get anywhere. We want to provide the best customer service, so they keep coming back to us and order again.”
Kate Yuelette, Customer Service Supervisor
The courier integration within OrderWise has drastically improved the experience of The Wright Buy’s customers. By ensuring the business is working with the most reliable couriers, The Wright Buy can better manage and meet their customers’ expectations.
“If we don’t have a great relationship with our couriers, then we will struggle as a business. We promise next day delivery on 80% of our items, so the integration with the couriers has to be spot on. Luckily and thankfully, OrderWise has always got the best updates to work with the couriers that we use.”
James Lotts, General Manager
In addition to improving customer service, OrderWise has also enabled The Wright Buy to save significant labour costs and time.
Courier booking is 90% faster
“We were spending £20,000 on a person to sit there all day and manually book on all of our jobs to go with a courier. And we did that for 5 or 6 years, but when we implemented OrderWise and brought the integration in with our couriers, we could do it in half an hour to an hour down from 10 hours.”
James Lotts, General Manager
Automation
OrderWise has not just unified and centralised all The Wright Buy’s core processes, it has also automated essential processes. This automation has streamlined warehousing and back-office tasks while saving on lengthy, physical labour.
“When an order is placed online, no matter what platform it is, the first time a human being touches that order or sees it, is when someone is pulling it off the shelf to put the shipping label on it.”
Nick Burke, Head of Ecommerce
The automation of data integration between different platforms hasn’t just increased the efficiency of sales order processing and despatch. From a customer service perspective, OrderWise makes dealing with customer enquiries and returns drastically more efficient.
“OrderWise is so straightforward as everything is recorded on there. You can use the Contact Manager feature to make notes. So, if a customer rings and speaks to different staff members, they can easily find out what has been discussed. Same with returns, it’s easy to open and all the return details are there.”
Kate Yuelette, Customer Service Supervisor
Reporting
As a business in the competitive online retail market, for The Wright Buy, to drive sales and increase revenue, real-time, accurate reporting across the business is paramount to make the most profitable business decision as quickly as possible.
“First and foremost, Sales Reports, we love to look at sales reports. We look at top-selling products for the week before because if there is a trending product that we’re selling, we’ll look at if we need to raise the price or drop the price.”
James Lotts, General Manager
In addition to forecasting, OrderWise’s reporting functionality also ensures The Wright Buy can protect their stock and quickly identify any issues with their supply chains or courier transits.
“We sell thousands of products a week and it’s inevitable you’re going to get damages with couriers. So, every single week, I will run a Damage Report and it will tell me about products that are getting damaged, the couriers that they’re getting damaged with. And I also do the same with faulty products, if I think a particular product for a particular line is becoming faulty too often.”
James Lotts, General Manager
The Future
Before implementing OrderWise, The Wright Buy generated a £7 million turnover and had only employed one additional member of staff since launching.
Today, The Wright Buy achieves a yearly turnover of £24 million and has hired 20 members of staff across the business. Some hires have been for departments that didn’t even exist when the business first launched.
“OrderWise has completely changed us. It’s been a lifesaver really.”
Andrew Wright, Director
The transformation of the business since 2014 is heavily attributed to The Wright Buy’s investment with OrderWise. However, this is not just the decision to implement OrderWise, but also how The Wright Buy has continued to analyse their needs for their growth pipeline and invest in OrderWise to enhance this.
“We can plug in extra modules, really cost-effectively. The real fixed-price nature of OrderWise makes things very simple for us. Increasing our reach is really easy because of that module nature. As the business grows, OrderWise grows. And we’re not paying for modules that we don’t need at the time.”
Nick Burke, Head of Ecommerce
Initially, The Wright Buy was a 100% reseller, but now, 99% of the firm’s revenue is generated from their own Cookology brand. An amazing achievement for the business which started as a corporation of three. Now, The Wright Buy has plans to go global.
“The aim is to increase the Cookology brand and get the brand awareness higher, make sure people understand it and see it outside of the marketplaces. Hopefully, over the next few years, we’ll take that international as well.”
Nick Burke, Head of Ecommerce
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