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Appaman turns its 3PL crisis into an opportunity to upgrade its fulfillment operations
When Alyssa Miller, Director of Operations at New York-based premium children’s clothing brand Appaman, originally reached out to Mochila, she had a vague sense that a better 3PL solution was out there, but was still easing into discussions of alternatives while busy running the day-to-day of her company’s operations.
Four weeks later, the decision as to whether to switch 3PLs was accelerated for her when Appaman’s then-3PL abruptly ceased processing orders for Appaman - and at a particularly inopportune time, just as Appaman was about to release its winter line.
Now scrambling to make a smart decision that would serve the company well in both the immediate present as well as the future, Miller’s conversations with Mochila continued in earnest. Two weeks later, Mochila was processing orders for Appaman - and processing them more quickly and accurately than the previous 3PL. As Alyssa recounts:
I was stunned by how quickly Mochila was able to get our fulfillment operations up and running. After experiencing a three-month outage at our previous 3PL, they literally saved Appaman’s business.
Mochila and Appaman worked to arrange regularly scheduled video calls with key team members from both companies, and together they were able to quickly identify and resolve issues affecting both the short-term and beyond. Mochila collaborated with Appaman to ensure regular business operations could resume seamlessly, while also implementing a strategic long-term technical and operational solution for order processing.
As the partnership progressed, Alyssa soon realized that what really set Mochila apart beyond their deep technical expertise and ability to react and implement solutions quickly was the Mochila’s focus on client relationships, attention to detail, and dedicated commitment to the long-term success of the partnership. Alyssa noted:
Mochila truly cares about getting things done right and delivering an exceptional client experience. They are always proactively looking for opportunities to improve processes and make our business run more efficiently. Mochila goes far beyond other 3PLs in ownership and proactively anticipating - and raising solutions for - potential issues.
Since the start of the relationship, Mochila has contributed major improvements to Appaman’s fulfillment operations in a number of key areas (detailed further below), including the following four areas: automating EDI and reducing chargebacks, speeding up the receive process, improving the quality of returns processing, and reducing ship costs with rate shopping.
Mochila carefully read through vendor manuals for each retail trading partner, seeking written clarification from each retailer where the guidelines were unclear or open to interpretation. Once any relevant ambiguities were removed, the Mochila team designed and implemented processes to prevent defects. For example, the placement of the UCC label on each carton was clarified, and a process for checking the precise placement was implemented before tendering the carton to the carrier for transport. In addition, Mochila implemented a system for ensuring POs were shipped well before the cancel date to enable enough time to stay in compliance whenever the designated carrier to pick up in time. By putting these measures in place, the amount of Appaman's chargebacks declined significantly.
Mochila identified a number of opportunities to reduce receive costs and to speed up the time it takes to receive items into inventory. Immediately upon beginning its review, Mochila noticed that packing lists were for an entire 40' ocean freight container, consisting of hundreds of cartons across many different POs. This led to delays getting items into inventory as every carton needed to be received, and all variances reconciled, before items could be made available for sale.
To improve this process, Mochila advised creating a packing list for each individual PO and clearly marking each carton with the PO number. This allowed Mochila to receive one PO at a time, quickly reconciling variances and making the inventory available for sale. Moreover, it allowed Appaman to prioritize the order in which POs were received first, making the most important inventory available sooner.
In addition, Mochila advised Appaman to consolidate all units of an item into one carton and to increase the number of single-SKU cartons. This not only increased the speed with which items could be received, but also significantly reduced the cost of receiving items by enabling Mochila to receive entire cartons rather than having to count each individual item.
Appaman’s inventory contains two-piece suits consisting of a jacket and a pair of pants. Benefitting from the Mochila team’s extensive experience in apparel returns, Mochila was able to identify several instances where customers were ordering suits in multiple sizes and returning a jacket and pants of different sizes (thereby breaking up the set), and proposed smart solutions to catch and correct the issue.
Prior to working with Mochila, Appaman would send all its e-commerce packages via UPS Ground. However, now as a Mochila client, Appaman was able to benefit from Mochila's sophisticated proprietary software with its automated rate shopping rules, and therefore was able to take advantage of the lowest cost shipping options, as calculated in real-time for each package.
Appaman's bespoke rate shopping rules were custom crafted for the brand to ensure specific transit time and customer delivery expectations were met. But in addition, by utilizing a mix of carrier and ship methods and taking advantage of Mochila's discounted rates, Appaman was able to reduce its shipping costs by XX%.
As Alyssa summarized, following the company's switch to Mochila:
Looking back, I wish Appaman had started working with Mochila so much earlier. They have proven over and over again their ability to execute at the highest levels to support and facilitate Appaman's business and operational goals.
Ready for Mochila to help upgrade your operational efficiency? Please schedule a call to learn more.
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