Case Study: Scaling Weddington Way to an Acquisition by The Gap

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After spending years acquiring and nurturing its customers, Weddington Way was excited to scale its operations further, but nervous about the potential hit to customer service that might accompany this growth.

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Founded in 2011 with a mission to take the pain out of buying bridesmaid dresses, Weddington Way created a platform to allow brides and bridesmaids to connect and shop as a group online. By 2014, the company had registered over half a million brides on its site and was shipping 10,000 dresses a year.

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At this point, all orders were shipped by Weddington Way staff from the company’s warehouse in San Francisco – a very expensive location for fulfillment, both in terms of real estate and labor costs, among others. And without a sophisticated warehouse management system to ensure order accuracy, the company required a highly experienced and well-trained staff to achieve these goals through a more manual and less efficient fashion - a solution that was very difficult to scale.

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When Karishma Baijal, Weddington Way's VP of Operations, approached Mochila, she knew the company’s current solution was less than optimal for supporting the company’s growth objectives, but she wasn’t sure what the right solution might be for her unique and very high-touch business. While partnering with a 3PL might facilitate an easing of the pain found in scaling to a large volume of orders, there was uncertainty as to whether a 3PL would be able to meet Weddington Way's very high bar for quality and the unique requirements of their business.

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Collaborating to define the vision

To kick off the company's exploration into whether a 3PL partnership would make sense, Weddington Way and Mochila began by clearly identifiying and communicating the major logistical challenges to be addressed. From there, they worked to collaboratively help define the company's next steps forward in furtherance of its vision for the future.

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The first challenge was Weddington Way’s large number of SKUs across a wide variety of styles, colors, and sizes. The company needed a fulfillment system that could easily manage that complexity, as well as the unique handling requirements of garments stored exclusively on hangers.

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The second challenge was the timing and rhythm of the company’s orders –  products were ordered by customers months in advance, so Mochila’s system needed to effectively manage a large volume of backorders. Moreover, fast receiving and shipping were mission critical: when backordered inventory arrived, it sometimes needed to be shipped right back out to ensure it arrived on time for a wedding.

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Finally, and most importantly, each product needed to be carefully inspected. Before shipping each item to the customer, a staff member needed to inspect the stitching along the neckline and bodice to ensure there were no loose threads, check that the zipper opened and closed properly, and review the train and hemline for any irregularities.

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Crafting the ideal solution

As Karishma would discover in the course of her conversations with Mochila, Mochila’s proprietary warehouse management system was thoughtfully built to successfully handle the type of complexity found in the wide variety of SKUs offered by Weddington Way.

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In addition, Mochila already had a high-functioning solution for handling backorders. While the system had not initially been designed to manage backorders at the scale required by Weddington Way, Mochila was able to quickly adapt its solution and thus allow Weddington Way to avoid having to manage these backorders themselves or needing to purchase and integrate a separate order management system.

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Finally, Mochila developed a quality control process customized for Weddington Way, and embedded that process into Mochila’s tools to ensure each dress was thoroughly inspected before shipping. With multiple quality checks automated and built into Mochila’s process, Mochila could reliably scale with high levels of accuracy.

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A partnership for success

Mochila’s ability to systematically develop a solution to address each concern, in collaboration with Weddington Way, convinced Karishma that Mochila was the right partner to help Weddington Way scale in the manner envisioned by the company.

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The partnership got off to a very brisk and positive start, with Mochila receiving all of the inventory from Weddington Way’s warehouse over a single weekend, and Mochila started shipping orders almost immediately. Orders were fulfilled quickly and accurately, and Mochila was able to successfully scale Weddington Way's order fulfillment, inventory levels, and customer returns to support the company's growth over 400% in 4 years, helping to facilitate Weddington Way's ultimate sale to the Gap.

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Interested in exploring how Mochila can help scale your brand? Please schedule a call to learn more.

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