Started in 2008, this Manchester-based company supplies the construction and joinery trades with a range of products that includes fixings and fastenings, tools, sealants and adhesives, roofing products and ironmongery. Since formation the business has undergone significant growth and in 2014, after a period of successful trading and increased online sales, it moved to larger premises with a 20,000 sq.ft warehouse and dedicated trade centre.
The business operates in a competitive marketplace generating sales from a mix of online and wholesale account customers and direct retail sales via their own trade counter. Their aim is to stock an extensive range of essential trade products at competitive prices, backed by excellent delivery and ongoing after sales service. Currently they offer thousands of live product lines for sale.
When the move to new premises increased the physical scale of their operation, they identified some issues affecting their ability to manage increasing volumes efficiently. As a result they decided to look for a software solution to help them. The solution would need to increase accuracy levels, help identify picking stock faster and provide key data for stock re-orders. It would also serve to reduce the amount of office based administration needed to support the warehouse operation.
After exploring the marketplace for suitable solutions and viewing a number of different options they selected the ProSKU WMS solution. Among the key reasons for selecting ProSKU were its affordability, especially when compared with other software solutions, and its ability to integrate with their bespoke website and admin system. After some essential integration work and a brief implementation and training session from ProSKU, the company went live with the system.
In order to provide a seamless solution for the business ProSKU needed to integrate with the company’s website. This would enable the website to provide real time stock availability for online purchasers and allow the ProSKU system to adjust stock levels for re-ordering purposes. This work was undertaken by the company’s own IT contractors using the ProSKU open API to create the essential link between the selling and stockholding platforms.
Another requirement identified was the need to request stock on an ad hoc basis for trade counter customers. For this type of sale they needed a process by which trade counter staff would be able to check availability and locate stock quickly. ProSKU provided a function for this which enables the user to select stock directly from locations in order to streamline this process.
The business is clear about the benefits the system has given them. ProSKU has provided a lot of extra efficiency and they are still finding ways to use it that give them more. The company has found that displaying stock values on its website has given its customers more confidence in making an order and has made them much more reliable, which in turn has resulted in a lot of positive service reviews. For the monthly outlay there are many benefits which make it very easy to justify.
