Find out how SMLXL leverages ShipBob’s Powered By answer to optimize achievement for 200+ shoppers, enhance stock administration, and scale with a scrappy crew.
Buyer Profile
SMLXL is a Nashville‑primarily based firm that helps artists and types construct, promote, and ship bodily merchandise. Since beginning out as a small vinyl collaboration with Relient Okay in 2014, the enterprise has grown into a web-based file retailer, merch design, and ecommerce achievement firm on a mission to assist creators attain followers straight. SMLXL has labored with artists like Switchfoot, Louis Armstrong, Wiz Khalifa, Megan Thee Stallion, and TobyMac, expanded right into a 13,500 sq ft warehouse, and fulfilled over 1 million orders.
Key metrics
- 200+ manufacturers’ stock managed
- 10-person achievement crew
- 1 achievement heart
- 1M+ orders fulfilled
About SMLXL
SMLXL could have scaled, however they haven’t forgotten their roots.
Having began SMLXL as a vinyl file distribution mission run from his basement, Mike Rental all the time had a coronary heart for rising artists. As the corporate expanded to merchandise achievement and warehousing, he knew he needed to protect flexibility for the creators they labored with. SMLXL wouldn’t lure artists or lock them into prolonged contracts (like most merchandise achievement corporations did); as an alternative, they’d give them freedom to develop how they wished.
That method was a smashing success. At present, SMLXL has fulfilled over one million orders, is beloved by musicians, and brings the private contact of a family-run enterprise to each consumer it serves in its 13,500 sq. ft. Nashville warehouse.
We sat down with Brian Spencer, Basic Supervisor of SMLXL, to debate how SMLXL adopted ShipBob’s Powered By answer to revolutionize their stock administration, optimize achievement operations, and obtain attentive help.
Dropping a patchwork warehousing answer that hampered scale
As informed to ShipBob by Brian Spencer, Basic Supervisor at SMLXL.
Previous to ShipBob, we have been utilizing a few completely different instruments to energy warehouse operations, together with a well-liked order administration and transport software program. It was okay, however their stock administration instruments weren’t complete sufficient – we didn’t have the required visibility into stock or detailed stock monitoring with checks and balances.
To assist increase confidence, we put one individual answerable for fulfilling every account. However that was neither environment friendly nor scalable – if an individual couldn’t are available, we had nobody who might fulfill these orders. It hampered us from scaling.
Plus, if there have been points, we didn’t have anybody to speak to. The help was fairly non-existent.
Finally, we determined we would have liked a unique answer, so we switched to ShipBob. As we proceed to offboard shoppers from our outdated answer and onto Powered By, we’ve gotten to see each programs in motion side-by-side, and it’s proven us simply how a lot ShipBob outshines the competitors.
Streamlining stock administration for 200+ clients utilizing Powered By
We selected ShipBob’s Powered By answer as a result of we would have liked a extra streamlined stock administration system to handle a whole lot of manufacturers and our personal warehouse services.
As our enterprise has scaled, it’s gotten tougher to preserve scrupulous group inside our warehouse construction and talk stock knowledge throughout our groups and to our clients, however ShipBob’s strong suite of instruments has made stock monitoring and reporting seamless.
Our stock administration has been super-served with ShipBob compared to our earlier answer. Our warehouse crew is extra assured of their actions every day, as a result of the software program helps them so a lot better – they now have checks and balances constructed into the method in order that they know they’re selecting the correct merchandise, and stock ranges are routinely up to date in real-time.
“Earlier than ShipBob, we relied on a patchwork of scrappy tech options to handle our stock, warehouse operations, and transport technique.
Powered By has helped consolidate these programs and introduced a variety of readability, cohesion, and operational prowess to our operations.
ShipBob has not solely simplified all the pieces, from stock administration to monetary reporting, however is unlocking our capacity to scale our income development.”
Brian Spencer, Basic Supervisor of SMLXL
Providing shoppers visibility and knowledge by ShipBob’s white-labeled service provider dashboard
With Powered By, we will provide our clients their very own individualized dashboard. It’s ShipBob’s dashboard white labeled for our model, and it offers them with visibility into SLAs and what’s happening beneath the hood, plus higher flexibility on the service provider degree to handle product circulation.
The suggestions on the dashboard from our retailers has been constructive. The purchasers’ operations stakeholders are significantly enthusiastic about it, because it delivers much more granular metrics and insights that they’re eager about, like achievement value and efficiency breakdowns, stock velocity reporting, and extra.
“We’re a small-but-mighty enterprise, which signifies that up till now, our software program and tech stack has been smaller scale. Powered By has pulled us into a brand new echelon of effectivity, and their white labeled Service provider Dashboard allows us to supply our retailers a sharper panorama and consider into our warehouse programs. It’s a technological leap ahead for us, and solely builds belief and confidence between us and our shoppers.”
Brian Spencer, Basic Supervisor of SMLXL
Powering scalable achievement with an intuitive WMS that anybody can use
Our crew is extraordinarily lean, as we solely have 10 individuals managing achievement and 22 workers within the firm complete, even with a whole lot of consumers.
Utilizing ShipBob’s WMS to energy our warehousing operations has been particularly nice for us as a result of it makes it extremely simple for anybody within the warehouse to leap in, decide, pack, and ship with no need hours of coaching or tons of background. With the ShipBob WMS, no institutional information is required, as we’ve got a repeatable, scalable course of pushed by world-class know-how.
“Previous to partnering with ShipBob, sure crew members have been assigned to particular manufacturers, and every time somebody was out sick or unavailable, we have been scrambling to determine who had the information to cowl for them and the way to get them up to the mark.
Now, with ShipBob WMS, all the pieces is scrupulously mapped, tracked, and monitored within the system. We are able to have individuals go away the warehouse and nonetheless have peace of thoughts understanding that, when an order comes by, whoever’s on the ground can step in and fulfill it with little-to-no hand-holding.”
Brian Spencer, Basic Supervisor of SMLXL
That form of effectivity is large for a crew of twenty-two; it’s allowed us to remain versatile and get extra of our employees concerned throughout our whole roster, which is able to solely assist us as we develop. It was particularly useful throughout peak season, too – it was a peak that didn’t really feel as a lot like peak, and ShipBob’s WMS positively helped get us there.
ShipBob WMS additionally helped us take a look at our warehouse and reevaluate how it’s organized and the way environment friendly the precise circulation of our structure of the warehouse is. It’s given us a variety of perception as to what new supplies we ought to be investing in, in order that achievement operations will solely get simpler for our warehouse supervisor and crew as we scale.
Bettering visibility, effectivity, and decision-making with ShipBob Logistics
We’ve already seen a variety of operational enhancements by leveraging ShipBob Logistics, their sortation and service pickup answer, and as soon as we’ve totally onboarded the remainder of our roster, we all know these efficiencies to actually take off.
What’s actually stood out is the visibility we now have into our logistics technique, particularly as we take into consideration scaling. ShipBob’s centralized dashboard makes it simple to match efficiency throughout all our carriers, which has given us a clearer understanding of the way to construction offers and optimize prices going ahead.
It’s already helped us make smarter choices and function extra effectively and we’re simply getting began.
Leveraging ShipBob’s world achievement community to ship worldwide orders quicker and cheaper
One in all our marquee shoppers needed to open up quicker, cheaper native achievement for his or her followers within the UK and in Europe, which might have been extremely costly and time-consuming to arrange on our personal.
Fortunately for us, ShipBob already has achievement facilities in each these places, and people services run on the very same WMS (ShipBob’s) that powers our personal warehouse! We ended up outsourcing our worldwide achievement operations to these ShipBob services, and it’s been an incredible association. It’s been actually insightful to see how a standard ShipBob achievement heart works, and the way we might probably change what we’re doing in our US warehouse to additional optimize issues.
“Leveraging a hybrid answer utilizing ShipBob’s worldwide achievement community means we will have our cake and eat it, too – we will serve our consumer and ship simply as stellar of an expertise as home clients get, and do it with out having to spend money on world infrastructure ourselves.
Utilizing ShipBob’s UK and European achievement facilities signifies that orders are getting delivered to finish clients each quicker and at a less expensive fee, as a result of it’s not transport internationally. That makes our clients happier.”
Brian Spencer, Basic Supervisor of SMLXL
The entire setup’s been so efficient, our consumer desires to begin utilizing an Australian ShipBob achievement heart this 12 months 2026!
Attaining attentive, professional help for a scrappy crew
The largest motive we selected ShipBob’s Powered By answer is the help. From day one, individuals like our Service provider Success Supervisor Martin and our Implementation Supervisor Lacey – everybody concerned with the day-to-day particulars of SMLXL – have been nice to work with.
The issues we face as a 3PL can get extraordinarily nuanced, so it offers us rather more confidence understanding that we’re partnered with true provide chain specialists on the opposite finish of the road which are each able to work by no matter we throw at them and proactive in supporting our distinctive achievement wants.
“We actually respect that we’re not simply submitting tickets into some black gap or big queue and hoping somebody sees it. As a substitute, we will attain out to our ShipBob help crew straight.
It’s simply nice to know that there are individuals on the opposite facet to monitor our success and ache factors, and assist present options. That private contact instantly separates ShipBob from the 3PL software program herd in and of itself.
For a lean and scrappy crew, extra individuals and extra help is all the pieces – particularly throughout this essential time interval in the enterprise’s lifespan – so the help we’ve acquired with Powered By has been phenomenal.”
Brian Spencer, Basic Supervisor of SMLXL
What’s subsequent for SMLXL
There are various initiatives and development alternatives on the desk for us. We’re tremendous enthusiastic about increasing worldwide achievement utilizing ShipBob’s community. We’ve already seen a variety of success with our marquee consumer, and it could be superior to have a worldwide footprint for SMLXL.
We’re additionally trying to develop the touring department of our enterprise. We’ve been investing in and perfecting it for the final two years, and it’s been thrilling to see our touring roster develop.
Historically, we’ve actually targeted our efforts on music, leisure, and superstar manufacturers, in addition to creating musicians and artists – however along with that, we’d discover the company world and check out our hand at fulfilling for extra normal ecommerce enterprise.
Irrespective of the place or how we develop, we’re all the time going to remain true to our roots: to make merch for all sizes, and to deliver autonomy to the shoppers we work with. We’re all the time searching for shoppers to deliver beneath the SMLXL umbrella (whether or not it’s a creating act or extra well-established, in leisure or in company entity) and attempt to be an extension of crew – the best way ShipBob is for us!
SMLXL’s crew at ShipBob
Martin Niemczewski
Martin is the Service provider Success Supervisor at ShipBob who helps SMLXL.
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