Troy Kniveton, our Senior Business Development Manager, sat down with Real Agency’s Adam King on the Real eCommerce Podcast to discuss when ecommerce retailers should consider outsourcing fulfilment, the first warning signs that operations are holding growth back, and how partnering with the right company can free up time, reduce costs and improve customer experience for retailers.
Read the full conversation below, or listen to the podcast.👉 YouTube
👉 Spotify
👉 Podbean
👉 Apple Podcasts
Adam King
So today we're going to talk third party fulfilment strategies with IFGlobal, and I'm delighted to be joined by Troy Kniveton. Thank you very much for joining us.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, thanks Adam, pleasure to be a part of this.
Adam King
So I've obviously got some personal experience with IFGlobal, having used your fulfilment services for a business I had in the past, but can you tell us a little bit about the history of the business, as I know it's kind of been around for nearly 20 years now. So yeah, just a little bit about IFGlobal, if you don't mind.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, not a problem. So we've actually undergone a rebrand recently. I think it was June we rebranded to IFGlobal, prior to that we were called I-Fulfilment and we were established in 2002. We're a privately owned business, owned by an individual called James Bartlett. We're based in Christchurch in Dorset, where we've got two facilities. We've also got one facility in Germany and then two facilities in the US; one in Las Vegas and one in Virginia. We've actually just taken on a brand new facility in Las Vegas, so we're really excited about that.
Adam King
Is that for entertainment purposes rather than fulfilment or is that just for fulfilment?
Troy Kniveton
No, just fulfilment, strictly business, as you can imagine. But with the US being so big, we do need an East Coast and a West Coast facility. Having a facility in California isn't the most ideal place to have a warehouse. So we actually had our first Las Vegas facility two years ago, and we've just seen extreme growth in that market, so we've had to take out an additional facility to ensure that we can maintain and handle that growth. So it's really exciting.
Adam King
What did you say about California? Why were there complications there, if you don't mind me asking?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, it's not very tax efficient to have a business in California and to store stock in California. The labour rates and everything like that are a lot more expensive. So essentially, from a warehouse perspective, you're only servicing the California market. So with Vegas just on the outskirts of California, it's a prime place, and the labour pool obviously being really good but also more cost effective. It's a better place to store stock and ship into California rather than storing your product in California.
Adam King
Okay, that makes sense. I saw a stat on your website that you've shipped over 1 billion products since 2002. Do you have any idea on the number of orders that you ship annually or anything like that?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, for sure. So it's obviously grown over the years, and I believe that it's been a billion items that we've shipped or products that we've shipped in terms of order volume. We average between 150,000 to 250,000 orders per month across all sites, and we're anticipating another 15-20% increase on that next year. So yeah, we're seeing some really decent volumes.
Within the industry as well, we're coming into the peak selling period now, so that's when we're almost doubling, if not tripling, the output across November, December, than we are in, as an example, May. So it puts quite a strain on the business in terms of resource and demand. But obviously through demand planning, we ensure that we can handle that, manage the resource and ensure that we can deliver on time and meet SLAs for the amazing brands that we work with.
Adam King
Yeah, and some of the SLAs I've seen are really impressive - 99.9% on time dispatch, 99.9% order accuracy. So this is all down to a really proven, well-oiled machine that you've built over the last 20 odd years.
Troy Kniveton
That's correct, yeah. So the three kind of pillars to how we operate the business, I guess, are People, Platform, Process. To break that down, it's having the right people who are well experienced in terms of delivering fulfilment, both direct to consumer and B2B fulfilment.
Having the right platform - so we've got our own proprietary software called BladePRO, which has been designed over the course of the last 15 years specifically for us to deliver the processes that we've developed over the last 22 years.
By combining these three things, we can ensure that we can deliver those great SLAs. It is logistics at the end of the day, so mistakes and issues do happen. But I think that's when you can move away from having strict processes and the right people can ensure that whatever happens, we've got the right people to deliver and turn that around to make sure that we're fixing those problems.
Adam King
Yeah, I think that the 'three Ps' is a lovely thing to have for everybody to align on. And I think the nice thing you said is that 'People' is first, so you know, you're a people-based business and having the right people to do the job and that care about doing it I think is massively important.
I think that's the bit that I've always got from you guys is, although you're a big business in comparison to say some of the businesses that might use you and some of the big global fulfilment agencies, it very much feels like you're still dealing with a family business and I think that's a really lovely thing. A small family business, although you've got massive scale, that's the feeling I get when I worked with you in the past.
Troy Kniveton
That's exactly the feeling that we want our brands to have. Ultimately, it all stems from James. It is a family-owned business and James can pick and choose the right customers and make sure that we're bringing on customers that accept that this is a partnership. We want to make sure that we're able to deliver for the brands that we work with and support their growth.
Like I say, it's logistics, so things will go wrong. Having a strong partnership enables you to fix those problems together and ensure that we're able to support the brands to grow and scale and move into new markets, etcetera.
Adam King
And I've seen, again, on your site, you're lucky to work with brands like Fitbit, ESK Skincare. And I think some of the other things that people don't see is that you can actually do a bit of reworking for some products in-house, right? So they can have different products shipped in their raw format, and you can rework and repackage them into more consumer-facing consignments to send out. Is that right?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, that's correct. So all of our facilities have a reworking, kitting area that enables us to, like you described, kind of manipulate products to put them into their finished format. It might be subscription boxes, it might be gift sets, it might be relabelling to make sure that they're compliant for, say, sending into the EU. So for instance, we did this with Bondi Sands where they had a lot of products that needed to be relabelled in order to be EU compliant.
It may be that there's specific calendars or gift sets for retailers ready for Christmas. We would obviously build those boxes, build those gift sets ready to send, send in and palletise and put into retailers like Boots, Superdrug and the like.
Adam King
Yeah, that does make it feel like you're an extension of their team, doesn't it? Because not only are you storing it, pick, pack and dispatch, you're actually there curating the products with them and making sure that they're fit for purpose, fit for market. So those are all kind of like services on top of what you'd expect to get from a fulfilment agency, right?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, definitely. We do things quite different here, I think. So the background of the business is that it was founded by James, but actually James's dad formally set up and established a distribution business called Kondor. So obviously within a distribution business, you're purchasing the products and the brands, you're owning that stock and selling into retailers.
Essentially, what we're trying to achieve here at IFGlobal is a distributor model without owning the stock. So as a brand, you can send in the product to us, we can store it, rework it. We'll help support getting product into retailers. We've got our own Amazon agency called Amplifi, which helps support Amazon marketplace growth for brands.
If you want bespoke packaging, we can obviously source that for you to ensure that we're able to truly be an extension of the brand. And I guess a one-stop shop, which I'm not really a massive fan of that terminology, but that's essentially what we're trying to achieve.
Adam King
I think if you're a retailer, it's perhaps what can you give to a trusted partner that allows you to focus on other areas of the business to help you grow. And also if you're going to work with something like Amplifi, it's shortcutting the way to make that market work or the advertising in that market work better than doing it yourself, you know, maybe employing people, maybe not getting the right person to do the job first time and re-employing. There's lots of hurdles that you do by going into new markets, new advertising channels where you just waste money, waste time. And I guess it's better that you get that right first time by using something like Amplifi.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, of course. And it's worth noting that the majority of the customers we work with are small- to medium-sized businesses. So probably an average of kind of 10 employees or something along those lines. If you've got a business that's scaling and you've got a small number of employees, everyone's wearing lots of different hats. So if we can obviously take that burden away from the brands and support them in certain areas, such as marketplace management with Amplifi or managing their rework and kitting, and supporting them operationally through the distribution elements and logistics part of their business, that frees up their time so that they can focus on the product development, sales and marketing, which are the areas that can enable them to scale and grow, which obviously supports both parties.
Adam King
And that kind of leads on quite nicely to something that we wanted to chat about, is when do you think is the right time for retailers to consider a move to third-party fulfilment? Is there like a benchmark number of orders? Is there a SKU count? Is there a number of territories? When do you think is the best time to start those early conversations about moving to third party fulfilment?
Troy Kniveton
I think it obviously depends on the brand and the setup of that brand. You know, I speak to people who are one-man bands, they've got a 9 to 5 job but they also sell a product on the side. So in those circumstances, probably the tipping point is maybe 300 orders a month, because that's about 10 a day.
Packing 10 orders a day doesn't maybe seem that much, but if you've got a 9 to 5 job to then come home to pack and dispatch orders, take them to the post office, etcetera, can be quite time consuming. So for that sort of scenario, I'd say about 300 orders a month.
But then other businesses we've worked with who have done it and built and scaled a brand in house and have their own facilities but are looking to then go to that next level where they can actually turn on the marketing budget to ensure that they're growing even more, they are kind of blocked by the size of their current facilities. So that's when they would actually look to us to then take on their operational side of things where they can focus on sales, marketing and product.
We've got 200,000 square foot of warehousing here in the UK, 50,000 in Germany and in excess of 200,000 in the US, so that gives them the platform and the space to be able to scale at all levels.
In terms of the original question, when is it a good time to outsource, it depends on the individual and the business, but I think that rule of thumb I would say at least 300 orders a month.
Adam King
So that's like an entry level. There must be other kind of things that you're going, hang on, this isn't working or this is creaking a little bit. And for me that was always when we used to get a big delivery, that would be everybody in the business almost has to stop for the day and help unload a container or several containers. And that meant everything ground to a halt at that point. You'd have things like warehouse staff who are on holiday, sick and you have a very limited warehouse team, maybe even one person at times. And if that person was off suddenly again, someone else has got to fill in and dispatch the orders or you've got a delay in orders going out. So these are all other things that I think if you're a retailer and doing your self-fulfilled stuff at the moment, these are things that probably are pain points for you right now.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, for sure. And I think also it's worth noting that the way the channels in which people are selling these days have changed quite a bit, right? So it may be that they sell a particular product and it's on social channels like TikTok or Instagram or the like, where you can go viral very quickly and you can sell a lot. You could get 600 orders in a day. So if you're doing it yourself and you've got a small facility, you know, that puts massive strain on you, on your business and on your team.
Whereas obviously working with a company like IFGlobal, we're able to accommodate those sorts of spikes in order volumes. But to your point exactly, cash is king for small- to medium-sized businesses. So when you're starting up, that's the most important thing to focus on: the cash and making sure that you're not overspending. But it will come to a point where actually the operations part of the business is actually hindering you from taking the business to the next level. And you will know that, you've given examples for yourself. So the brands will know that that's the point where they need to kind of plan ahead. They know that before they get to that stage, they're able to find the right partner, get their product and set up in with that partner and then they can seamlessly grow essentially.
Adam King
Is there a transition point in the middle where you've seen retailers might keep some for their own warehouse and then maybe move the faster moving lines to you to service and then you have like this split warehouse? Is that possible with the software?
Troy Kniveton
It is possible. If we're going to see a split, truth is that you generally see a split where the fast-moving, high-output side of the business, typically the direct to consumer part of the business, would generally be outsourced, and then they may take care of the B2B side of things. We obviously offer both so we can fulfil into both direct to consumer and major retailers: you know, Sainsbury's, Walmart, Harrods, Tesco, Superdrug, Boots, etcetera. So we take care of both, but I think it's also worth noting that when you outsource your fulfilment, it's not a fixed cost, it's a variable cost. So the more product you have stored with us, your costs go up, the less you have the costs go down. If you've got your own facility, it doesn't matter how many pallets or how much product you've got within that facility, your costs are the same and they're fixed during peak season. You're paying just as much as you are during non-peak when cash is coming a lot less and there's less sales being made.
I think that's really important to understand so that actually I would suggest if you're going to outsource it, outsource the whole thing and I would argue find a fulfilment partner like IFGlobal where we can do both direct to consumer and B2B so you've got all of your stock in one place and one stock pool for us to pick from.
Adam King
And if you've got that demand planning and you've got a really good and robust supply chain, you can probably make efficiencies within that to store less and kind of, you know, like you say, save on that warehouse space because you've got an efficient goods in, you've got a good returns process, you've got all of that, and you've got the software that's helping you plan demand, which should hopefully mean that you become more efficient and actually have to store less stock anyway,
Troy Kniveton
That's right, definitely. And I think through our operating system, BladePRO, it highlights slow moving stock. So, you know, if you've got your own facility, then having 10, 20, 30 pallets of stock that's not moving, like I said before, doesn't impact your monthly warehouse costs, they remain the same. Whereas obviously, once you've outsourced, you're getting charged for each one of those pallets on a weekly basis. So essentially, you want to highlight actually these SKUs aren't moving, so it's probably a good time to put a promotion on, get rid of these SKUs and actually not reintroduce them into your portfolio because you're not making any money from them.
Adam King
The other saving I saw was actually because you ship so many parcels, you have much better rates with all of your logistics providers like DPD and things like that. So what that meant for me was I couldn't get the rates you could get. So actually some of the cost of pick, pack and dispatch was covered with the discount in the actual logistics rate for sending the box, which I hadn't considered, but actually it was such a good saving. Almost made your service pay for itself.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, correct. Not only that, but within BladePRO, it's got its own shipping module, so we actually can identify the best carrier based on that exact order. So for instance, you might have a slightly bigger order and it decides that DPD is more cost effective than DHL, or Royal Mail is more cost effective than Evri. And then we can write rules within that to ensure that obviously you're getting the best carrier for whatever the rules are. So it might be the cheapest track service possible, so that takes care of itself within the system.
But if you're to do fulfilment yourself, quite often you don't have the array of carriers that we have and you need to pick one. So all of your eggs are in that one basket, which may be Royal Mail, might be DPD or the likes, whereas when you partner with a company like IFGlobal, you've got an array of carriers to work with.
Adam King
Yeah, and it may be that you only serve like one territory, like the UK, and then all of a sudden you get a swarm of orders from overseas and you haven't got that set up with your provider or they don't cover that territory and you're stuck again.
Troy Kniveton
Correct. We are exactly that and obviously you don't have the expertise to ensure that the product, once it arrives in that country, can pass customs, etcetera. So now, fantastic news, you've sold 200 orders into France or Germany, etcetera, but those 200 orders need to come back because you don't have a commercial invoice attached to them or whatever it may be. That's the expertise that we can bring to brands to ensure that they can scale appropriately and sufficiently.
Adam King
And the scaling part, we've touched on Amplifi, but you're quite adverse with taking on brands that may only have their own single website channel to start with and help them get on new channels like Amazon and then advertise on Amazon as well and get their listings right. It's not just a service that is required for the fulfilment of the product. You're also there to help grow the business with new channels and new marketing strategies as well.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, that's right. So I'd say that 98% of our brands are on Shopify. So the way in which Shopify has advanced, as an example I mentioned TikTok earlier. TikTok shop flows through Shopify. So you can sell orders on TikTok shop, which then flow through Shopify into BladePRO, which is so that we can receive those orders. So as you enter into new markets, or even in domestic markets, we can guide you and support you in terms of getting your product into new marketplaces, new platforms, which, you know, are going to support the growth and increase sales for you and give you that structure so we can support that growth and that scalability for the brand.
We also work with a lot of partners where we can support international growth. So it might be compliance, might be tax, might be setting up a business in the US or in the EU, etcetera. We obviously have logistics teams that can support in terms of getting that product efficiently to the retailer or through to the end customer. So yeah, we've got a huge partner program which enables us to support in various different ways.
Adam King
And you touched on it there, but are there a lot of brands that you've helped scale in terms of geography like territory? So you have started in one territory and then expanded to others because you've got that fulfilment structure in place.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, correct. We've supported brands scale both internationally, but also say for instance, we have SURI toothbrushes, they started with us in the UK, launched with us from zero sales to now, you know, a well known household brand. They launched in the US with us also. And we've got brands that operate in our UK, EU and US facilities. We also have brands that would come in to our German facility as an example, and then move into our US and then our UK. So it's definitely a huge bonus to have a fulfilment company or fulfilment partner that has these facilities, multi-site, to support that growth.
Adam King
Yeah, and I think obviously if you're having your product made outside the UK, you can be more efficient in terms of tax and import duties if you send them directly to the warehouse for that geography. So, you know, if you're selling into the EU, you would send it to the German warehouse and obviously straight to America for the US rather than import and export complexities with the UK, right?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, that's correct. The last thing you want to be doing is importing product from the Far East, as an example, into the UK, unloading those containers, and then repalletising product to then send into the EU or wherever. Not just because it's not cost effective from a duties and customs perspective, but also there's a cost implication for every touchpoint that is associated to that product.
Ensuring and enabling the production facility to then send directly into your fulfilment facility ensures that it's most cost effective approach to fulfilling orders. Once you get to that stage, obviously, recently, there's the US de minimis that's changed. So that's obviously massively impacted our customers. So previously, we would actually recommend if the order value is less than $800, that actually it's a good way in which to grow in the US market is to actually send your product from the UK facility into the US. And it enables you to kind of get a better understanding of the US market. Get your name out there, get the brand out there, but also understand where are your customers. Are they on the East Coast, the West Coast, central US, etcetera. And that can then help define where to put the stock once you're ready to move in-country.
Adam King
But you'd help the retailer decide at source based on run rates and demand planning, how to split that order, where best to hold it in terms of stock, and then what territories you'd serve from each warehouse? That's down to the relationship with you and the retailer.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, that's correct. And in a lot of the cases, obviously, when you've got the volume and the way in which the US is set up, it may be a case that you've got a high demand in both East and West Coast, and therefore you'd split the stock between Vegas and Virginia to ensure that you're as close as possible to the customer, which obviously saves in terms of carrier rates and shipping rates.
Adam King
And you mentioned a second ago of SURI toothbrushes, they came to you as a start-up with no orders. So that must be a really conscious decision for the brand or the retailer to say, look, we're going to need this service pretty early on, so let's put our best foot forward and work with a third party fulfilment centre to start with.
Is there anything you needed to see from them as a start-up brand that made you have confidence that they would need your service or that it was the right choice for them to start with you?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So both Mark and Gyve from SURI approached us in November 2021. And obviously they came to us with the idea and the proposal of what they were looking to do in terms of launching this sustainable electric toothbrush brand. And obviously from our perspective, there was no data to back that up in terms of order volumes or anything like that. But obviously what they did show us was a clear plan and forecast of what they were looking to achieve. And, you know, they were extremely convincing and therefore we welcomed them on board. And in fact, they pre-sold about 5,000 toothbrushes ready to launch in May 2022 when they finally got the product into the UK. And since then, it's just, well, they've gone global.
Adam King
Fantastic, and they did a lot that with a presale as well, you're saying, so they didn't have the stock that came in, it then went straight out presumably?
Troy Kniveton
That's correct, yeah. So, you know, if you've got a product that you believe will sell in high volume, there's lots of great platforms in which you can get your product listed, which enables you to kind of presell that product. So when it does land and it does arrive in-country then obviously you've got, you know, however many hundreds and thousands of orders ready to fulfil.
Adam King
And I guess that's one of the kind of quick wins that they can expect if they're doing presales. What quick wins would you think people will get from moving to third party fulfilment straight away? I mean, obviously there's the kind of reduced need for headcount in their own warehouse and managing staff and time and complexities. Returns was always a big thing for us to manage, you know, making sure people have the stock back. Was it resalable or does it go into a seconds bin? Those for me were quick wins when we worked together. Are there any others that you see clients appreciating straight off the bat?
Troy Kniveton
I think there's two main areas. Obviously, from what you've just described, the founders and the entrepreneurs that set up these businesses, they didn't set them up to think that actually they're going to have to be head of operations and kind of be in the thick of it in terms of, like you say, returns and unloading containers and...
Adam King
Probably not what they enjoy doing, right?
Troy Kniveton
No, exactly right. So they enjoy and they've developed a fantastic product, but it's also probably not the only product that they want to create or develop. And also they love sales and marketing in terms of seeing those numbers come in and those orders come in. So I think the clearest thing is that there's a neglect to those sorts of things, the revenue drivers and actually the focus because urgency is placed on the operational side of things. So we can obviously relieve them of that and actually give them their time back so they can focus on growing sales, focus on new products and marketing initiatives that are obviously looking to develop and grow sales also. So immediately you can expect to see an increase and spike in terms of sales based on efficiently spending your time on those areas of the business.
So I'd say they're the main things, but I'd also say that, you know, we've got 22 years of logistics and fulfilment expertise, you know, they don't. So when it comes to new product, new carriers, new services, new rates, new options, new partner initiatives, you know, they've now joined essentially a club which enables them to gain access to those insights. And, through the account management team, we can support them in understanding the best ways in which to do things and processes, etcetera, to kind of enable them to then scale. It's given them the platform to then grow, but also the time in which to develop and invest in growing the brand itself.
Adam King
One thing I used to love when I first started my first ecommerce business was you'd wake up in the morning and you'd be like, how many orders have come in overnight? It used to be so exciting to see orders come in for what you're selling without, I mean, obviously there's effort with the marketing and everything else has gone into it, but literally no effort and people have bought your product overnight.
The next biggest bit of excitement when we worked with fulfilment was how many orders have been effortlessly sent out the door with no effort on our part. So you've got these two mechanisms that used to give me a bit of a wow factor, which was how many orders have come in and then also how many have gone out with almost what seems like minimal effort. Obviously there's lot of effort behind the scenes with you guys.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, for sure. Well, it's outsourced effort, isn't it? It's I think, you know, the matter of time. I had my own Shopify business also, and, you know, hearing that ka-ching come through when you've made a sale, and then obviously hearing that on a recurring basis is fantastic. But then you've obviously got to realise that you then have to pick, pack and dispatch that order yourself and take it to the post office. And yeah, I think that the realism step kicks in, doesn't it? So I think for sure when you're able to outsource it to a partner like ourselves, we can ensure that you're excited and you're motivated to go 'how far can you turn the dial on this?', because it's not you that's managing the operations, it's outsourced. So you want to sell as much stock as possible without obviously the repercussions of having to pick it, pack it, dispatch it and all these things. I saw the excitement in your face then and it gives that back to these entrepreneurs which was the reason why they started in the first place.
Adam King
Absolutely. The limiting factors are gone then, aren't they? The things that were holding you back are not in the way anymore.
Troy Kniveton
Exactly. And from my perspective, as the Senior Business Development Manager here at IFGlobal, I speak to brand owners every single day, and relieve pressure or give them a solution that enables them to grow and expand their business. And, you know, it's a real honour, in truth, to see them so passionate about their brand and their product and their plans for the brand and the product.
They appreciate, hence why we're having the conversation in the first place, that there's a blocker to them achieving their goals and their dreams. And, you know, we're able to support them and assist in terms of enabling them to go to the next step in terms of achieving their goals.
Adam King
Fantastic. So when people do move to you or maybe before they move to you, they've probably got some kind of blockers in their head as to what might be some of the problems of moving to third party fulfilment.
What would you say are some of the biggest challenges retailers face when they go from their own warehouse or even, you know, like we're saying, 300 orders, some people might be doing that at home, but moving from whatever their facility is now and their processes now to move into your systems and processes?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, I think it's exactly that. It's the change of process, right? So, you know, if you're managing your own facility, or you're doing 300 orders a day, 300 orders a month, or whatever, you know, you can dictate which order to prioritise over another. Now you do have that option with us, but it's not just a case of shouting down to someone in your warehouse to stop doing what they're doing and move to another thing. You know, it's a little bit different to that, right? So I think they feel like they're potentially going to lose control of that and it's a move into a more rigid format and rigid processes, which are going to kind of be 'computer says no'. And that can be the case, you know, there are 3PLs and fulfilment companies which are very rigid like that. Like you mentioned at the start, I believe we're not like that.
We understand it from the brand's perspective, you know, one of the main reasons why we launched, or why James launched this company, was because he had his own brands, he was an entrepreneur at the start, and is still an entrepreneur. So he had his own brands, he understands what it's like to be a brand owner. And we need to respect that and support brand owners to adapt, I guess is probably the thing.
Adam King
In terms of the actual integration part of things, you've got out of the box integrations with most of the big ecommerce platforms. So people shouldn't worry from a technical perspective, because a lot of people who run a Shopify store might think, oh, I haven't got anybody that's going to help me do the integration piece. But that's all kind of out of the box for you, isn't it?
Troy Kniveton
Correct, yeah. So we've got an onboarding team. So essentially, we will manage that entire project with the customer and with the brand. It's a six week timeline where we can support the move from their in-house solution to us essentially. And that covers us doing the integration.
So we just need access to the Shopify store or WooCommerce store or whatever platform it is that they operate on. We would just need access to that to complete that integration. We'd also test that integration to make sure that once we go live, that it works absolutely fine. And then we'd also work with them to understand and minimise the downtime.
What we try and aim to do is bring in 50% of the stock upfront so that we can then bring in the product, store it away correctly, run the tests, do the integration, and then when we're ready, turn on that integration so that we're then fulfilling orders from that 50% of stock and we would then look to bring in the final 50% to ensure that there's no downtime at all.
Adam King
Okay, again that comes from being around for years and having that process in place to make sure it's more seamless.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, of course. And predominantly, we've been talking about outsourcing for the first time. But of course, a lot of our customers also come from existing 3PLs. And yeah, through our experience, when we've received stock from other 3PLs, bearing in mind, you've just left them, it doesn't come in necessarily the best light, the best format, and it does take a bit of time for us to then put that stock away, check in that stock, make sure we see all the inventory, that it's accurate to what was sent in, etcetera. So enabling us to have that time, start on a clean slate to ensure that we've got the correct inventory, turn on that integration then bring the rest of the stock in and minimise the downtime for the brand.
Adam King
I think there were three things for me when I was looking to move to you guys. The first one was occasionally we do like manual checks on the product to make sure things were as we'd expected because we would order them from, as you say, the Far East, they would come in a box and without any kind of spot checking we might be sending out ones that had minor defects or things like that, so yeah, it was great that you were able to accommodate that kind of manual spot checking and things like that.
Another one was that we would occasionally get, like you said, people don't want to lose that hands-on control. So occasionally we'd either get bigger orders that we'd need to scurry around and make sure went out because they were time critical, which I know you've been hugely accommodating of in the past. If it's important to the business, then you've always made that important to you. So that's really good. And in the same respect, being able to put a stop on certain lines or stop on certain products going out because of maybe a fraud query or maybe they want to place another order and it's more efficient to ship it together. So again, those sorts of things have been easily accommodated by you in the past. Are there any others that you think you've seen where the team have adapted or changed to the retailer that you've got?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, for sure. So I think all of this stems back to People, Platform, Process, which enables us to be more flexible, both from a platform and process perspective, and obviously from our people in terms of assisting in that.
We've kind of rewritten the software to support brands in delivering specific projects. So one as an example, we've got a customer called Lick Home. So they do paint, and they launched in 2020 during lockdown, and one of the main selling points was that actually you'd buy a sticker to place on your wall to then give you an indication of whether or not you like that paint colour. And you would then place the order and get the paint delivered. So they basically invented a way in which you can buy paint online. But they came to us with an issue in terms of they weren't able to pick the samples quick enough because their previous 3PL essentially would have an individual go out and pick each individual sample.
So it might be a pink 01 and a black 02 and a purple 03, etcetera. And that would be time consuming and unscalable. So what we did is we developed a picking wall, essentially, a pre-sort wall, which enables us to pick 98 orders at once. And then you pick, you scan order one and then it tells you that order one has a black 02. So you can pick a stack of black 02s, put one into the pigeonhole order one. And then it will also tell you all of the other orders within that 98 orders that also have a black 02. So you're basically picking and packing all of the colours at once, which enables it to be one pick of doing 98 orders in, you know, as little as an hour and a half. So it enables scalability and from that perspective, it was kind of a game changer for them.
So that's kind of from a software perspective, like you've touched on, we've got customers who have reworks consistently happening. We've got bespoke elements with embroidery and these sorts of things that we're able to assist on. And even our offices in Dorset are quite unique, you know, we've got a warehouse at the back with a shared office space at the front in the company called SmartBase. It's like coworking. So the idea or the concept when we developed it was that we could have brands kind of feeling as close as possible to their product without having the hassle of, you know, managing the operation, essentially. We've got customers who regularly come down from London, and then they'll go into the coworking space and can check on their stock, get a feel for the new products coming in, new lines coming in, you know, sit down with their account manager to discuss kind of forecasting for the next year, etcetera. And then just get on with the rest of their day in terms of going through emails, and have a coffee and relax in a nice space.
Adam King
That must be pretty unique to have that kind of closeness, coworking space right next to where your product's stored. It kind of gives you the feel that you're back with your own warehouse and working right next to it. It's a lovely thing to have.
Troy Kniveton
Exactly. I've personally never seen that before. And I think that it's amazing. And I love showing brands that as well, even if they aren't necessarily going to use it. I think that it's just an amazing facility, which kind of gives them a real sense of what we're about as a business and as a company. And that's being inclusive to all brands and supporting all of our brands to grow and scale.
Adam King
Yeah, and you're really helpful with efficiencies as well because at one point we noticed that a lot of our products were getting picked in 10s and 20s and we were just having boxes of 50 or 100 shipped over, so there would be 10 or 20 picks but on your recommendations and what you could see through the data was if we actually pack them in inner cartons of 10, that would then be one pick so we've kind of reduced nine picks off any one order. For 10 or 20, it would be two picks as opposed to 20 picks, so little things like that you came to us with which actually saved us on the overall cost of the pick, pack and dispatch as well. So I think that data driven approach and being able to make recommendations and being close to your product so you can see these things is definitely going to help.
Troy Kniveton
Exactly. And I think that comes back to the partnership piece, right? So true partnership enables us to kind of come with recommendations on how to save you money and improve operational picking for ourselves as well. We want long-term partnerships where we can genuinely add value to our customers. And that's a good example of where we've done so.
Adam King
Yeah, and we've talked a lot about people and the process, but BladePRO, the platform itself, that's where all the insights are driven. That's where it all comes from. That's kind of like the brains of the operation that does all of your routing through the warehouse, does all of your demand planning, everything. It's kind of like the central piece of software.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, correct. So everything is powered by BladePRO. That's across the globe, so all sites are powered by BladePRO. And, like I say, it dictates and ensures that we're taking the best picking options to ensure that we are reducing the picking times so that we can effectively ensure that we're picking the right product in the right times and reduce the time it takes to pick the product, etcetera, and get the orders out, making us more efficient.
It ensures that we're picking the correct product as well. You know, no one ever wanted to receive the wrong product, but we're in a day and age now where actually with unboxing experiences and online reviews, etcetera, that if you receive the wrong product or your product arrives late, it's immediately there's a complaint online or a video that's highlighting how poorly packaged it is, etcetera. But on the flip side, how quickly they've received it or how beautiful it looks within the unboxing experience.
BladePRO ensures that we can deliver the right products at the right time and hit those SLAs that were described at the start, but also from an operational perspective, as we add in more humans to the operation, BladePRO basically just shows them what to do and just drives them in terms of where to go, where to pick from, how many to pick from each location, etcetera. So yeah, it's a fantastic piece of software.
Adam King
It's how it's adapted over time as well because it started with barcode scanning and then you'd scan the barcode and then it would show a picture and then that's when now different instructions can come in on a per-SKU level. So if we said with this particular SKU, we need you to check every one, that instruction can come through as part of the pick, right? So how it's evolved over time is kind of a testament to how the business has grown over the last 20 odd years.
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, exactly. And I think on that piece as well, it's also, you know, the demands from our customers have changed in terms of what they're asking of BladePRO. It's not just an operational tool which enables our staff to pick and pack orders accurately to the right level and in the right packaging, etcetera. It's a tool that our customers and partners can use to understand more about their products and their sales and their inventory and forecast planning, etcetera. So it's fantastic in that respect.
Adam King
When we go into a business, quite often we try and understand what is the central piece of business software. Often it will be like an ERP or a warehouse management system. Sometimes it's the website. But really, if you kind of invest in BladePRO being that central piece of software and consider all the other channels that run from it like your Amazon channel or your website, they kind of feed from that master system, then it makes sense that that's the place you invest all your time. You get all your inventory right, you understand your sales data, all of that sort of stuff is harvested in there and so much so now I think that BladePRO is being sold as its own unique software product to other warehouses is that right?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, that's correct. So the concept and the idea is that we've separated BladePRO as a standalone solution now. So obviously we've tried and tested it in terms of being put into new locations worldwide as part of IFGlobal. But we've also successfully put the product into brand facilities as well.
The paint company that I mentioned earlier, Lick Home, they also have BladePRO operating in their manufacturing site. So for their bigger B2B orders, they're actually able to fulfil them themselves directly as it's from painted through to the end customer via BladePRO. So yes, we're looking to introduce and bring BladePRO to offer it to brands who aren't ready necessarily for outsourcing their fulfillment, but at the same time are looking for a robust WMS software that can enable them to scale and give the operational efficiencies that BladePRO does.
Adam King
So People, Process, Platform, how do you think is the best way for a retailer to experience that? Is it coming down to see you? Is it going to go and have a look through the warehouse? Because that was like the big wow factor for me. If you are a small- to medium-sized retailer and you're doing all of these things in your own warehouse and then you suddenly come and see what you're doing on that scale, being as efficient as you are, being a kind of Amazon-approved warehouse, all of those things, it's just a transformational visit for me. Is that the best way you think people should come and find out more about you?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah 100%, and as you can imagine from a sales perspective, you know what we're saying in terms of what we're going to be delivering is near on what everyone else will say as well, so it truly is once you visit us and get an understanding of who we are, what we do, I think that, like I say, you know, being a brand owner yourself, it may be that you receive product that needs QC testing, that isn't accurate, it needs rebarcoding. There's a slight dent on the box or anything like that, that needs, on mass scale, that you need fixing. I think through having a good relationship with your 3PL and a good, genuine partner in them, that's going to enable them to fix those problems sooner rather than later, enabling you to sell those products faster. And that comes down to working with the right people and having the right facility that can handle that kind of request essentially, and the best way in which you can understand that is by visiting us, meeting the team, seeing the facility, and just having a chat over a cup of coffee.
Adam King
Fantastic. Is there any other way that people can find out more about you if they want to just have a look online?
Troy Kniveton
Yeah, if you visit our website, www.ifglobal.com, check us out, follow us on LinkedIn, connect with us on LinkedIn. We don't do pushy sales. If you have any questions or want to know more about what we've discussed or want to learn more about how outsourcing to a 3PL looks like, and even if they're a year, two years away, then yeah, just get in touch, have a chat.
Adam King
Fantastic, and we're lucky enough to be doing a joint event in November, aren't we? So if you are in the near Dorset, Hampshire area, then you can come and join us on the 13th of November for the ecommerce meetup that we're doing together.
Troy Kniveton
Exactly, yeah, beer and pizza, so can't go wrong.
Adam King
Yeah, can't go wrong with that. Bring in the crowds. Thanks so much for today. Really appreciate it, thanks for all your insights.
Troy Kniveton
Thanks, Adam.