Rebecca Gibson |
Independent retailer Browns Shoes has been selling a vast range of footwear for men, women and children since the 1940s. The company’s goal has always been to provide outstanding customer service and fulfil orders as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, this hasn’t always been easy for the retailer because it has to manage orders from 65 stores across North America, as well as its e-commerce channel.
Recognising that it needed to find a way to consolidate these orders into one single platform and leverage inventory from all of its locations to fulfil them, Browns Shoes decided to invest in a distributed order management (DOM) system. After reviewing several options, it chose Tecsys for its scalability, flexibility and unique order consolidation capabilities.
Tecsys worked in collaboration with OFS Commerce to connect the DOM platform to Browns Shoes’ five existing retail systems, creating a unified commerce solution. Now the retailer can instantly see real-time inventory levels for every individual store and its 75,000-square-foot distribution centre so it can automatically route orders to the optimal fulfilment locations. This has cut the order-to-fulfilment cycle to just 15 minutes in some cases, while also ensuring that customers are no longer inadvertently sold out-of-stock items.
The solution has also optimised shipping operations by consolidating multi-line orders to ensure they are sent to one designated location for collection or single-box shipments. Together, these capabilities have helped to reduce the overall order lead times by 13%, cut shipping costs and allowed Browns Shoes to offer express shipping with 99.5% accuracy.
“This implementation will enable us to stay at the forefront of omnichannel retail for years to come,” says Richard Sejean, director of e-commerce at Browns Shoes. “Having solid and reliable partners like OSF Commerce and Tecsys ensures that we are able to provide our shoppers with exceptional experiences regardless of how they choose to shop with us.”
This article was originally published in the Winter 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issues delivered directly to your inbox.