Woolrich is ready for global growth with Fluent Order Management

Company overview

Established in 1830, Woolrich, “The Original Outdoor Clothing Company”, is the oldest American outdoor clothing brand. They have a rich heritage of innovation. Today, Woolrich collections are distributed in 45 countries through a network of 35 stores worldwide. The Woolrich brand is a new entity owned by Woolrich International. It was formed in 2016 following a merger between Woolrich Inc. and Woolrich Europe. It operates boutique stores in countries including Australia, Italy, Germany, Sweden and USA.

Since the 2016 merger, the company and brand have undergone a deep transformation. Major objectives included optimizing company profitability and business performance across channels. This included their retail, wholesale, ecommerce and marketplaces.

The challenge

Pre-COVID, the company’s success in Europe lay in the strength of its established distribution model, but the global pandemic forced Woolrich to think differently.

Distribution and fulfillment operated in isolation. A third party handled home delivery. An outside supplier managed returns. And marketplaces were not supported.

When the global pandemic hit, Woolrich was forced to close 15 out of 17 boutique stores. So customers went online to buy, and Woolrich could not keep up with demand.

Woolrich attempted to use tools such as web chat to address the issue. They’d connect online customers with customer service staff to take orders. But it soon became clear that the process wouldn’t scale. They needed a modern, purpose-built solution to meet the new needs of their customers.

At the time, Woolrich lacked some of the key ecommerce features offered by other European outdoor clothing brands. This included ship-from-store and the ability to ship a single order from multiple locations — also known as split shipments. They needed to take the next step in their digital transformation.

A key strategic shift for us was the introduction of a direct-to-consumer model to complement our established distribution network. We wanted to improve our customer experience as part of our planning to meet future omni-channel requirements.

Margherita Vestrucci, Omnichannel Operations Manager, Woolrich

When selecting a vendor, Woolrich had two key criteria. Flexibility and rapid time to market. In addition, they needed a solution that could integrate quickly with Salesforce Commerce Cloud. One that could scale to meet the growing needs of their business over time.

The solution

Woolrich chose Fluent Order Management, a cloud-native distributed order management system to provide them with:

• Real time inventory visibility. A single view of real-time inventory visibility across all their fulfillment locations. This has enabled them to offer faster delivery times to customers.
• Store fulfillment. Woolrich uses Fluent Order Management to manage Home Delivery, Click & Collect and Ship-from-Store orders. They are also rolling out the Fluent Store web app. This will enable store staff to pick, pack, and ship orders, and manage the customer pickup process, so they can increase staff productivity, reduce order errors, reduce training time and increase pick and pack efficiency.
• Multi-country and multi-brand support. Fluent Order Management can manage orders and fulfillment locations across many brands and countries. In addition, order fulfillment logic is flexible. This means they can adjust it to fit the unique use cases of each.

Fluent Order Management is a great solution, driven by great partners that allows you to deliver solutions to your customer in reduced time. Thanks to Fluent Order Management, we were able to roll out ship-from-store, which we didn’t expect to do.

Margherita Vestrucci, Omnichannel Operations Manager, Woolrich

Rollout plan

Woolrich selected commerce specialist, Accenture, as their systems integrator to implement Fluent Order Management. They took a phased approach as described below.

Phase 1 — ship from DC in Europe

Phase 1 took four months. It included the rollout of the order management and returns process for the whole of Europe using a single dedicated warehouse.

Phase 2 — store fulfillment in Europe

During phase 2 they added store fulfillment at their 9 stores across Italy and Germany.

Phase 3 — U.S. rollout

Phase 3 included the rollout of their U.S. warehouse and two stores. This has had a huge impact on sales and the amount of stock they were able to make available online.

Results

By using cloud-native technology from Fluent Commerce, Woolrich was able to pivot quickly and maintain customer loyalty during an unprecedented period in history. Key results include:

• Deployed phase 1 of Fluent Order Management in just four months
• Rescued 2021 sales targets by exposing store stock to online channels
• Increased sales due to accurate inventory availability data
• Streamlined processes and systems through use of Fluent Store so store staff can better manage pick and pack orders and service customers

They now have a flexible and scalable system which will support future growth across their global retail network.

Covid-19 has seen an explosion in customer preferences for online shopping and home delivery at speed. These enhanced capabilities mean we can be flexible and fast in managing our ecommerce orders while developing a true omni-channel experience for our customers that makes us even more convenient and easy to shop with.

Margherita Vestrucci, Omnichannel Operations Manager, Woolrich