Pick wine faster than grapes with Snapfulfil
Club W makes 30 to 50 different wines available to online subscribers, who receive three or more bottles shipped directly to their doorstep each month.
Subscribers to Club W can make a selection from Club W’s recommendation engine or pick the wines that intrigue them a la carte. The company’s inventory is created by reputable winemakers who develop their wine for Club W exclusively, offering consumers a simpler and more affordable way to access great wines.
In order to compete with the large e-commerce wine sellers like Amazon and Wine.com, which sell wines primarily by the bottle, Club W needed to introduce a more sophisticated warehouse management system. Club W’s rapid growth, increasing product diversity, and new California fulfilment facility was not being supported by their existing WMS.
Kjiel Carlson, Club W VP of Operations, explains: “Club W has established a leadership position in the wine club market and we required a robust leader in the warehouse management system solution space to drive ourfulfillment operations for the future. We needed a partner and not just a WMS vendor to help guide our business with best practices and recommendations for improving our operational processes supported by a best of breed Tier 1 warehouse management system that will scale to meet our projected growth.”
He continues: “We also required a solution we could interface with our existing home grown solutions for order management as well as packaged SaaS solutions for transportation management and NetSuite ERP. Most Tier 1 WMS systems have large capital investments in both licenses and hardware, but Snapfulfil brings a much more logical and cost effective approach. They put their money where their mouth is by taking on the risk to bring the system up and operational. Our team loves having a partner with skin in the game who is invested in our success.”
The process of installing the Snapfulfil WMS took a mere 60 days, from concept to full implementation. On the inaugural ‘go live’ day, which coincided with a comprehensive marketing campaign by Club W, in excess of 1000 packages were successfully shipped using the new Snapfulfil system, with 1,400 the following day.
Kjiel Carlson adds: “Prior to ‘Go Live’, the process and transition was very smooth. As with the implementation of any system, there are issues and bugs along the way, but the Snapfulfil support team has been great, providing accurate support, delivered with empathy and a level of care that has been exceptional.”
Martin Warren, Snapfulfil Project Manager, comments:”Initially the team at Club W were keen to know how Snapfulfil would emulate and improve their current picking methodology. As time went on, they were very receptive to learning about a different approach to their old way that would be more efficient and productive. They were understandably cautious as to whether it would prove to be the case; but the way in which Snapfulfil performs replenishments, manages the packing and then finally provides the dispatch traceability very quickly gave Club W total confidence in the system and the comforting knowledge that that they had chosen the right solution.”
Fellow Snapfulfil Project Manager Tom Shannon concurs: “Successful implementations require well assembled teams and a well-coordinated partnering effort between vendor and customer. Club W made certain that their implementation team had the proper breadth and depth of experience in each of the key areas (project management, warehouse operations, and IT).”
He continues: “When we arrived on site it was obvious that Club W did an outstanding job of preparing and planning internally for the ‘Go-Live’ event. All pre-requisites were in place and the Club W implementation team was standing at the ready. Once the system went live, warehouse staff logged onto their RF devices and began processing assigned tasks with little or no guidance required. Another indication of how much effort in such a short amount of time Club W put into go live planning and training.”
Tom concludes: “There is a well-known quote by Henry Ford which states ‘Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success’. Based upon that, this implementation was a resounding success.
