AshaPops is not only sharing a snack from Asha’s childhood with the world, but their mission is philanthropic in nature. Selling a meaningful and plant-based alternative for healthier snacking options understandably took off in the LA farmers’ markets, and in a matter of two years, Ashapops was placed in retailers around the country. In order to help fulfill these new wholesale orders, they turned to ShippingEasy to automate batch shipping and compare shipping rates across carriers in real time. 

AshaPops’ expansion to wholesale meant finding a reliable shipping solution 

AshaPops was founded in January 2018 in Los Angeles, California after Jai’s mother, Asha, began searching for a new, healthy midnight snack. But, Asha hadn’t been able to find any that satisfied the cravings she had for the childhood snacks she grew up with in India. After trying out several options, Asha found a winner in popped lily water seeds and made Jai try them as well. 

They realized the plant-based snack didn’t leave them with the same heavy feelings as chips and other snacks, and Jai began to share them with friends. After his friends tried the snacks, they encouraged the pair to consider starting a business. AshaPops launched its first product in March 2018 at the Marina Del Rey farmer’s market, and now, you can find AshaPops in major retailers such as Whole Foods, Erewhon, Walmart, and Amazon. With this expansion, Jai and Asha needed to find a shipping solution that could handle the influx of wholesale orders to replace their previously manual process of fulfillment. 

Batching shipments streamlines the shipping process 

The main issue was that their previous shipping solution had limitations on the number of orders they could batch at one time; it was slowing down their shipping process because of system delays and website timeouts. 

ShippingEasy enabled Jai and his team to be able to batch up to 200 labels at a time — 10 times faster than their previous solution. 

“It was a tremendous amount of savings in terms of time. 40% savings is probably a fair number if I have to put a number on it.”

Once batched, these shipping labels were printed in a matter of seconds and sent to the fulfillment team to prepare orders. As a business that sells wholesale orders to major retailers across the globe, being able to batch hundreds of orders at a time was a game changer. 

“What really helped again was the ability to batch print all of these versus having to email one label at a time…So it minimizes the chances of a label being missed or sort of duplication and so on and so forth.”

Shipping rate comparison and consolidation lead to big savings for AshaPops

In addition to speed, Ashapops has also reduced its overhead on shipping thanks to ShippingEasy. With the built-in rate calculator, Jai and his team can now compare shipping rates across carriers to find the best service for each order. 

Also, ShippingEasy gives merchants USPS and UPS accounts when opening their accounts with negotiated rates, and merchants can connect their own accounts with carriers like FedEx. Having all of your carrier accounts in one place keeps everything organized and saves merchants like AshaPop time. 

“It was important that we had a central portal that would be able to create labels for us, not just for one carrier, but for multiple carriers, depending on what was the most cost-efficient option.” 

Prior to ShippingEasy, AshaPops had to individually visit carrier websites to compare rates. Going forth between each website to find the best rate for their shipments was tedious and time-consuming, especially for a small business. 

“ShippingEasy helped us by allowing us to have that reliability and consistency of process.”

Address verification helps merchants avoid order mistakes 

An increase in orders leads to an increase in the potential for mistakes. Incorrect customer addresses can be costly, and if they aren’t caught before an order is shipped out, it can delay products hitting the shelves. With AshaPops working with major retailers, it was important to find a shipping solution that would help ensure a seamless delivery. 

“Frankly, we’re not shipping experts ourselves, so we were learning as we went. Having a software that sort of had those checks and balances in place has helped us.” 

ShippingEasy’s Address Verification tool notifies Jai’s team anytime an address is incomplete or incorrect, minimizing the risk of an order being lost or returned.

Repeated addresses without repeated input

Sending consistent wholesale orders to the same retailers also means repeatedly creating labels with the same addresses. ShippingEasy allows AshaPops to quickly select addresses for their repeat customers to avoid having to type in the address every single time. 

“Using ShippingEasy helped us just expedite this entire process and save on time, which definitely meant less labor. We were able to have someone [work part-time] on this versus needing somebody to do this full-time. It’s a significant amount of time savings, which then translates into cost savings.”

The future of AshaPops 

After being voted Whole Foods’ Supplier of the Year in 2021, Jai and Asha want to continue to expand AshaPops across the country, with the dream being to eventually supply them globally in Asha’s hometown of Mumbai. AshaPops also continues to support the Sankara Eye Foundation, which provides quality eye care services to the impoverished and economically-disadvantaged sections of India. Wherever AshaPops continues to expand, ShippingEasy will be there to help Jai and Asha share their beloved snacks with the world. 

 

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“So the question is, would I recommend ShippingEasy? And my answer’s absolutely yes. Because it completely helped us when we were doing everything in house and we had to, we’re a small business…we needed something to set up quickly, allow us access to different carriers, and be able to…do things in a repeatable process that sort of minimizes the errors.” 

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The post AshaPops Cuts Shipment Preparation Time By 40% With ShippingEasy appeared first on ShippingEasy.

A pocketful of quarters, a cacophony of beeps and boops, and no parental supervision…At one glorious place in time, happiness was found at the arcade. New Wave Toys in Los Angeles, CA aims to bring that magic right to the doors of their dedicated customers in the form of miniature arcade games, boomboxes, and even change machines. The company got their start on Kickstarter in 2017, and have leveled-up every year since then, now shipping thousands of orders a month from their LA warehouse as well as from a 3PL in China for their international orders. 

Managing an ecommerce business from the crowdsourcing stage to the industry-leader stage is no easy feat. Luckily, New Wave has trusted ShippingEasy with their fulfillment from the very beginning. Given their business model that revolves around pre-orders and timed drops of new products and restocks, the company doesn’t have time to play games with their shipping. We visited New Wave Toys owner Peter Gould in their warehouse in LA to discuss how ShippingEasy keeps their business winning.

Optimizing Pre-Sales and Stocked Orders with ShippingEasy

New Wave Toys’ market is one that thrives on hype. Their quirky collectibles are released in a “drop-based” model, where nostalgic arcade fans rush online to submit pre-orders for a limited run of a new product as soon as it’s announced. Without a shipping solution like ShippingEasy in place, this high-volume fulfillment ecommerce model would be nearly impossible, or at least much more chaotic. To show us the difference, Peter walked us through a typical order process for an already-stocked item.

“For something in stock, we get the order, it comes into Shopify, and it immediately gets synced over to ShippingEasy. We come in in the morning and sort the orders, while setting aside the new orders.”

Since New Wave can depend on ShippingEasy to seamlessly transpose all orders into the program, they never have to worry about missing a beat – or a sale. The only thing left to do is get those packages ready to head out the door.

“If it’s a typical day, we’ll do 10 or 15 orders, sometimes a little bit more. We get it, we process, we print the label right there, we come out, grab, pick and pack. It goes out the same day almost every time. It’s really fast,” Peter says.

Pre-orders made easy

When it comes to those highly-anticipated drops, though, things get a little more complicated. The customers’ energy and expectations are high, and there’s no time for slip-ups when it comes to getting these collectibles to their new homes. After years of utilizing ShippingEasy to navigate pre-orders, Peter feels confident even in the most tense times.“Pre-orders are a little bit different. This is where knowing your way around ShippingEasy and knowing how to set up and use automation rules is really helpful,” Peter says. “So we’ll do a pre- order period for 2-3 weeks which will yield 3,000 orders. ShippingEasy holds onto those orders for us so that when we have the product, we’re ready to go. By the time it gets here, you want to get it out fast. So we have a whole system set up for grouping the same product by shipping class.” 

The New Wave team have perfected the arts of both regular warehouse management and drop days with ShippingEasy by their sides. Through the years, they have tested other solutions to make sure that they are working smarter, not harder, and it seems the results speak for themselves. 

“I tried several other shipping softwares and I kept coming back to ShippingEasy. For our business, it’s the best one that we’ve found.”

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The perfect ecommerce packaging 

Every ecommere business owner know that finicky customers come with the territory, but perhaps no customer base is quite as particular as the collectibles enthusiast.That’s why, when it comes to shipping these replicas, New Wave Toys has had to reinvent their packaging and shipping methods time and time again.

“These are all collectables. A lot of these are limited edition. We only willmake a few thousand of them. Shipping in general is incredibly important to our business. It can be a source of frustration, obviously, but we’ve done a lot to make it better and to get people what it is that they want.”

Keeping customers happy begins in the warehouse. When the company initially got their first products in from the production warehouse, they realized the thin fluted boxes weren’t going to cut it. After a test-run shipping them out to their own homes, New Wave employees were less than impressed. Now, they have implemented a box-within-a-box system to keep these collectible toys looking perfect.

“We prepackage it in a shipper and a frustration-free package, so we just stick it in a bubble wrap envelope and ship it out. We could slap a label right on the outside and do it, but we like people to have it arrive and look nice. And so we go overboard.”

When Peter says “overboard,” what he really means is “more cardboard!” These collectibles need to get to their destination without a scratch, a bend, or even a suggestion of a journey. So Peter and the team put their heads together to come up with some less conventional packaging standards.

We’ve had to accommodate the idea that the box is a collector’s piece as much as the inside. We added this outer layer that looks like the original shipping box that the arcade game came in,” Peter says.

Shipping collectibles safely

Keeping track of all these particulars, especially for products that vary in size, could be complicated, but Peter and the team use ShippingEasy to keep track of inventory and automatically weigh the orders before they go out. 

“We have a variety of shapes. Our biggest package that we ship out is two of the arcade machines together in one box, which is like 16x16x10 in. and weighs about 12 pounds.”

No matter how demanding the customer, or how precious the box, ShippingEasy has New Waves covered (and not just with a thin layer of cardboard!)

Savings through UPS OneBalance®

Beyond the Russian doll-style packaging, there are also costs to consider when shipping thousands of products a month. One of the biggest draws to ShippingEasy for New Wave Toys was the negotiated rates they get with UPS OneBalance®. Since they use UPS for almost all of their domestic shipping, New Wave couldn’t imagine a business model without this system in place.

“We have a complex set of challenges that we’re presented with when it comes to fulfillment. Thankfully, ShippingEasy offers me really great rates through the UPS OneBalance Program,” says Peter.

By using OneBalance through ShippingEasy, New Wave Toys is able to cut their shipping costs by up to 77%. This savings allows the team to allocate fewer resources to getting products out the door and more to finessing products, packaging, and new ideas. 

“At the end of the day, we have a very specific business model of pre-sales, and none of the other solutions provided the right set of tools.”

The post New Wave Toys Ships Collectibles and Saves Up to 77% with ShippingEasy appeared first on ShippingEasy.

“Our whole family has been in textiles forever and ever here in North Carolina,” says Boardroom Socks CEO Nathan James. “My grandfather used to bring in silk from Japan for women’s stockings before nylon was invented, and my great uncle owned a sweater mill where he would knit sweaters.”

The tradition spans seven generations and most recently landed in the hands of Nathan’s mother and father, who began running the merino wool sock company out of their family home in 2010. Back then, inventory was stored in the attic, where Nathan’s mom had to crouch down to pick and pack from thousands of pairs of American-made socks. 

The James’ attic, where every order was packed before they found ShippingEasy

“I remember she used to use the 8-1/2 x 11, full sheets of label paper. Then she would use a paper cutter to cut the label out and then stick that on the package. It was okay while we were doing a relatively small number of orders,” said Nathan.

But, it should come as no surprise that the family with centuries of experience in textiles make some damn fine socks. And because of this, the number of orders didn’t remain small for long. That’s when Nathan decided to take their fulfillment out of the attic and into the future with ShippingEasy.

Weaving Tech into Tradition with ShippingEasy

Boardroom Socks needed a solution that could keep up with their thriving business and take the worry out of fulfilling eCommerce orders. After trying other shipping software and still not seeing the results he wanted, Nathan needed a sign to point him in the right direction for his company. So, like so many before him, he consulted the internet.

“We knew there had to be an easier way,” says Nathan.”So I literally went into Google and said, ‘How do I make shipping easy?’ and it said: ShippingEasy. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, too easy.’”

“Over the past seven years, ShippingEasy has saved us tens of thousands, if not even in the six figures, in shipping costs. We’re a very small business, so that’s a lot.”

And easy it has been! Boardroom Socks uses ShippingEasy to cut down on time and manpower, which is essential practice for any business, especially one that is consistently growing. Boardroom Socks loves ShippingEasy because it allows them to ship out orders up to 36 times faster than before.

“It took 10-12 minutes to print and process orders in the attic,” says Nathan. “Once we switched to ShippingEasy and implemented all of the shipping rules, it takes us less than 20 or 30 seconds to print off a label and packing slip.”

All of this time saved translates directly into money saved. By cutting down on time dedicated to shipping, while also utilizing ShippingEasy’s exclusive shipping rates, Boardroom Socks is able to run lean while growing.

“Over the past seven years, ShippingEasy has saved us tens of thousands, if not even in the six figures, in shipping costs. We’re a very small business, so that’s a lot,” said Nathan.

ShippingEasy Makes Third-Party Logistics Possible

As the owner of any business, but especially a small and family-operated one, Nathan wanted to maintain “hands-on” control of fulfillement while enjoying “hands-off” time to focus on big-picture projects. When their brand was stuck in the family attic, this hands-on aspect was all too real. Before ShippingEasy, Nathan dreamed of utilizing a Third-Partly Logistics warehouse, but knew that his company didn’t have the right systems in place to hand it off. Now, Boardroom Socks has an airtight process that translates seamlessly into a 3PL’s capable hands.

“We’re able to ship faster and more reliably. Without those rates, it just would not be cost-effective whatsoever for us.”

“ShippingEasy gave us the ability to scale and to work with a third-party logistics company to do pick, pack, and ship, because we have a process packaged up. Now we can offload that and we can focus on growing the business and managing the business instead of just running the shipping, which was all-consuming.”

Thanks to the myriad of automations and integrations ShippingEasy provides, Nathan is able to offload the time and effort of fulfilling orders while feeling completely secure that the brand’s reputation for excellent customer service is upheld. Boardroom Socks is known not only for quick turnarounds, but affordable ones as well. With ShippingEasy’s UPS One Balance program, their business has been able to save up to 76% off UPS 2nd Day Air®️ service and up to 77% off UPS®️ Ground shipments.

“A lot of customers are pleasantly surprised when they receive their order from us faster than anticipated. A large part of that is from transferring all of our UPS shipments over to the OneBalance rates through ShippingEasy. We’re able to ship faster and more reliably. Without those rates, it just would not be cost-effective whatsoever for us.”

Easy Integrations with Sales Channels

One of the most daunting parts of shifting to new software is, of course, the setup. When Nathan switched Boardroom Socks over to ShippingEasy, he was expecting the worst, as the small team already utilized several different marketplaces. Luckily, ShippingEasy has been easy to implement and run, even as Boardroom Socksd continues to expand. When he took the plunge and implemented ShippingEasy, he was pleasantly surprised by how effortlessly it optimized the pick, pack, and ship process and how seamlessly it integrated with marketplaces like Etsy and eBay, as well as third-party logistics platforms. 

“We have all of our sales channels connected within ShippingEasy. We’ve got Etsy, eBay, Amazon, and then, most importantly, our Shopify store. It could not be easier to go into ShippingEasy and just click ‘add a store.’ You just connect the two and it’s up and running.”

The ease of use and efficiency that ShippingEasy provides has opened up new doors for Boardroom Socks. Since they can add new integrations without having to outsource technical support or hire more IT help in-house, the world of marketplaces is their oyster, and they don’t have to be afraid to dream big. 

“It just makes the barrier to entry and the starting cost of adding a new sales channels so much less expensive due to the plug-and-play nature of ShippingEasy,” says Nathan.

Shipping Automations Cut Confusion (and Costs)

In a similar spirit of empowerment to think outside the box, Nathan cites ShippingEasy’s simple automations as a major win that allows Boardroom Socks to add or subtract items or bundles with no interruptions. With customized shipping rules in place, every order — no matter the marketplace — comes in through ShippingEasy and the 3PL warehouse workers get to work, utilizing a packing list with totals tallied up on the bottom for extra visual reinforcement. Even the special touches like customized packing slips and pick sheets are a breeze thanks to ShippingEasy’s seamless workflow. 

“I think the biggest thing is setting up the shipping rules and just having the logic in place to automatically have all the orders, basically plug and play with what the packaging is, the service levels, the carriers… And that’s what’s made it really easy with our warehouse.

Expanding Internationally with Cost-Effective Shipping

While Boardroom Socks keeps everything hyper-local, that doesn’t mean their ambitions are confined to the borders of beautiful North Carolina. In fact, the brand has always had aspirations of an international presence. Unfortunately, the benefit hasn’t outweighed the cost: until now. 

“Shipping internationally was so cost-prohibitive that it was not something we could do. ShippingEasy opened that door to us with those opportunities.”

Nathan discovered an integration with ShippingEasy that is taking international shipping from a pipe dream to a close reality. Once Boardroom Socks gets the APC Postal Logistics integration off the ground, the cost to ship to international will be competitive enough to justify doubling down on marketing and advertising in their top international prospect: Canada. 

“Integrating with APC Postal Logistics is the next big thing on my roadmap. Shipping internationally was so cost-prohibitive that it was not something we could do. ShippingEasy opened that door to us with those opportunities.”

Growing into the Future with ShippingEasy

From out of the attic and into the global marketplace, Boardroom Socks has come such a long way with ShippingEasy by their side. Now, the company has some room to breathe in both their new manufacturing warehouse and fulfillment center.

And while Nathan has taken the reigns to usher their business into the future of ecommerce, Nathan’s parents are still very much involved in the day-to-day, generation-long tradition of building a quality, American-made textile brand.

“My dad, Mike, works a lot on the yarn and on the manufacturing side of the business. Then my mom, Carol, handles all the finances, and we always jokingly say she keeps us in line,” says Nathan. The dynamics of running a family business are always interesting!”

This family operates stronger together, a truth that was reinforced through the trials of COVID and the consequent shipping delays and shortages. Now that things are well and truly calming down, Nathan and his family are ready to begin designing, sourcing new materials, and dreaming bigger than ever before. 

“ShippingEasy has saved us plenty of time and money, but I think the biggest benefit that we’ve gotten out of it is that it’s unlocked the ability to grow and focus on other areas for our business.”

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On Earth Day 2020, friends Danuelle Doswell and Mignon Hemsley turned their off-the-cuff idea of owning a plant shop into a reality and launched Grounded. The D.C. based online plant store sources mature houseplants and ships them out to customers across the nation all from their tiny studio space. While their operation may be small for now, their mission is massive. 

Founders Mignon and Danuelle believe in the power of owning plants to effect change on a person’s mental health. For Grounded, plants are more than an aesthetic; they’re a catalyst to a healthy life, which can so often be hard to come by in the neighborhoods that surround their store. 

As Grounded grows from a seedling of an idea into a flourishing business, Danuelle and Mignon trust ShippingEasy to keep their complex shipping processes running smoothly with less manual effort. Since adopting the shipping solution, the duo has doubled their output volume and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. 

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Planting the seed

“Danuelle and I met almost six years ago,” says Mignon. “We always bonded over plants, food, music. One day, she sent me a tweet on Twitter that said “33% of plant owners are millennials.” I wrote her back, “I’m going to open a plant shop.” I had no intentions in opening a plant shop, I was just talking.”

But Danuelle wasn’t joking around. 

“She said, ‘well if you’re serious, let’s really do it.’ And so from there we just discussed what plants meant to us, to our families, how we grew up with houses full of plants. And we realized that owning a houseplant really enhanced our mental health. And so we thought that we have to spread this message to everyone, just encouraging other people to have house plants too. And we wanted to do it all online.”  

A few months after that fateful tweet, Grounded launched. Since then, they have shipped over 20,000 houseplants. 

Growing pains 

Their mental health-focused mission couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Just as Grounded hit the internet, COVID-19 began its rampage around the world. 

“When the pandemic happened, we were a little afraid. People were losing their jobs. People didn’t know what they were going to do next. We wondered, ‘are people going to want to spend money on plants?’ But we thought that our focus and our message really aligned with what was going on,” says Mignon. 

And they were right. Houseplant sales skyrocketed during the pandemic, which was great for business, but tough on Mignon and Danuelle. These business owners were also the only employees at Grounded, which means that everything fell to them, including packing and shipping orders. 

“When we first started, we were literally on the USPS website, inputting all of the orders because we didn’t use Shopify from the beginning either. We used another third-party website builder, so there was no way to connect the two,” says Mignon. 

Without that integration, the pair had to manually enter and upload thousands of orders. By June 2020, Danuelle and Mignon knew that something had to change. And that’s when they found ShippingEasy.

An easier way to ship

Since then, their sales have doubled, and Grounded has had a much easier time of getting plants to their destinations. The company has even been able to branch out into different markets and expand their reach.

“Our main focus is shipping houseplants direct-to-consumer, but we also have a B2B sector where we do corporate gifting. We also do online corporate webinars where we teach people how to take care of their plants and make the most of them,” Mignon says.

While keeping a houseplant alive can be a hard task in the best of circumstances, it is even more difficult to send them out in the mail in the middle of the summer or dead of winter. Danuelle and Mignon take special precautions when packing the plants, including weather-proofing the packages and packing orders quickly and frequently. 

“We try to pack orders at least twice a week and then take them to the post office. Once an order is placed, it’s processed within about two to three days. And then after that, we’ll try to ship it out by the next day.”

Now Mignon and Danuelle have more time to focus on providing excellent customer service and expanding their brand now that their shipping process requires less manual labor. Here’s how ShippingEasy helps Grounded get it done: 

Automatic order integration

One way ShippingEasy saves time for Grounded is by allowing customers to input relevant information, which is then shown directly in ShippingEasy. 

“ShippingEasy is super helpful when manually uploading orders that do not come directly to our online store, such as a Corporate Gifting order. We’re able to instruct our clients to enter their recipients’ information then upload and map it easily to begin processing, This saves so much time because otherwise, we would have to manually enter their orders.”  

Filtering

Keeping track of orders used to be overwhelming for Mignon and Danuelle. With ShippingEasy, they’re able to get a broad view of all orders.then apply filters to see only the orders that fit whatever criteria by which they want to sort.  

“We love how easy ShippingEasy makes it easy for us to filter orders by delivered, in transit, etc. This allows our communication with customers to be even more seamless in the event of a delay or error,” says MIgnon. 

Shopify Integration

Grounded uses Shopify to facilitate a majority of their orders. Thanks to ShippingEasy’s seamless integration with Shopify. Processing orders from that platform is quick and easy.

“Our Shopify orders go straight to ShippingEasy and we can automatically begin processing for shipment. It would be so hard to operate without this integration.”

Giving back to move forward

Danuelle and Mignon have big plans for the future of Grounded. The pair plan to start a non-profit to help D.C. residents in food deserts grow their own gardens as a community. 

“There’s an area in Ward 8, which is predominantly black, and it’s been known to be a food desert,” Mignon says. “We want to focus our nonprofit on food equity because both of us are gardeners. We would love to plant a community garden and teach kids how to grow their own food.” 

Grounded’s goal is to uplift their community through the power of plants, but this is a practice that anyone, anywhere can put to use. The only goal is happiness. 

“Put your phone down, close your computer and talk to your plants, play music for your plants, water them. If you pay special attention to your plants, you’ll learn their needs. And sometimes those needs will align with your own.” 

Looking for more information on shipping perishable items? Check out our How to Ship Food with USPS blog!

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