We like challenges. The solution of shipping customized goods was exactly such a challenge.
Imagine corporate t-shirts. They have logo embroidered, they are in corporate colors and made to measure. Each company has a different logo, colors and number of required pieces. Now imagine that there are shirts, sweatshirts, work trousers, work vests, overalls, caps, reflective vests of various sizes, men's and women's versions and suddenly there are over 25,000 potential SKU items, unique items that our customer sell.
All goods are sold as standard, without logo or customized, branded clothing for a specific company. We managed the entire logistics over 18 months. Today we have 4 flows of goods towards the warehouse as well as 4 ways of packing at the exit. Let's take a closer look:
1.the company orders, for example, 100 pieces of overalls without a logo, it is a larger B2B order in several boxes, which we stock out directly and deliver by courier. This is the simplest case for logistics.
2.customer orders 25 caps with embroidered logo. We collect such orders during the day and then we ship the collected number of caps to the tailoring workshop at cut off time. We transport them with our couriers that day, prepared in pockets exactly according to the number and marked with the bar code of the internal order. As these caps are unique, with the logo of company we always create a unique stock item for them and wait for its production.
The tailor's workshop will process the caps and our courier will take them to the warehouse in a few days. Upon goods are received they are stored under a unique code, so the final order for the customer becomes ABC's equipment and can continue in shipping.
3.the third variant is a combination of the 1st and 2nd - the order is for unique goods as well as for standard clothing. The system is correctly waiting for the completion of order and delivery in one shipment to the final address.
4.our favorite choice is also the most difficult. The customer orders printed T-shirts, embroidered caps, which are, however, processed by various suppliers in two various places, the tailor's workshop and printer. And the goods themselves are from different suppliers and may not be in stock, they can be ordered to measure for that order. The whole process has many steps and the shipment waits until the entire order is finalized.
As you can see, e-commerce is not just a simple shipping from stock. This e-shop managed to sell customized products in Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic thanks to Fulfillment by FHB without need of its own warehouse. The employees of the e-shop work in beautiful offices in the middle of the city and sell dozens of trucks of clothes every year.