A few weeks ago a few of our merchants submitted case studies to Alibaba’s eBusiness Champion Contest. I thought that they were actually very cool case studies of how entrepreneurs at various stages of business are using Shipwire to automate their ecommerce order fulfillment. What is particularly interesting is how these merchants sourced products internationally on Alibaba.com. >
Raza Trade

Hussain Z. formed Raza Trade, LLC in January, 2007, while preparing for his own wedding. He was looking for wedding linens and was surprised to find very few online options available for US based customers. He ended up ordering directly from China, but the order came in two weeks too late for his wedding, so he decided to sell the linens online. What started with a mere $500 in inventory has grown to over $40k in bi-monthly orders.

Hussain works full time at Smith Barney, so it was important to him that his business grow with as little time commitment as possible. He decided to run his business virtually by outsourcing his call center, SEO/website management and, most importantly, his shipping and warehousing with Shipwire.

Warehousing in Manhattan, where Raza Trade, LLC is headquartered, is cost-prohibitive. With Shipwire, Hussain is able to save on storage costs by tapping into an international network of distributed warehouses. Shipwire also takes care of all customer shipping, returns and tracking, enabling Hussain to distribute 40 boxes of shipments in just 6 minutes online. This lets Raza Trade, LLC to have a unique pricing advantage against their competitors, who have to buy maintain traditional warehouses and a large number of staff.

Raza Trade, LLC’s unique outsourced shipping strategy enables it to operate a just-in-time supply model, where 95% of all incoming shipments are sold to ship within days of arrival to Shipwire’s warehouses. Raza Trade, LLC has since experienced rapid growth, from $10K (2006), to $80K (2007), to $150K (2008, projected) without Hussain having to hire employees, field calls or even touch a single package.

Raza Trade, LLC is highly committed to social responsibility. The company has a stringent review process where it checks if their Chinese manufacturers have accurately priced their invoices (many manufacturers frequently under report their prices to evade tariffs). Raza Trade, LLC also gives discounts to the many churches and universities it services.

ThoughtFish Media

Andrew S. founded ThoughtFish Media while running his own tile company. At the time, he was managing a large warehouse with many employees, while maintaining a full-time job at Kodak. He wanted to continue to grow his business as an entrepreneur without sacrificing time with his six adopted children and full-time job commitment, so he sold the tile company and formed a tile software company instead online.

Since starting in 2002, ThoughtFish Media has emerged as the industry leader for tile, bead and other craft art design software, with over 26,000 customers in 32 countries. Their users have grown to become passionate fans and the company will host its first worldwide user group meeting in North Carolina later this year. All is sold from their online store or through major online e-tail affiliates, like Tiger Direct.

Recently, ThoughtFish Media has set its sights on international expansion. However, they found that only 50% of their shipments to Canada, for example, would be completed, due to difficulties with carriers, customer returns and paperwork. The other problem was that with every new product launch, the company could not send the new products fast enough to meet overseas demand (customers had to wait two weeks or more).

ThoughtFish Media decided to turn to Shipwire to outsource all of their shipping and warehousing needs. Shipwire is an international network of on-demand shipping warehouses. With Shipwire, Andrew was able to stock his products locally in Canada and the UK, so that when customers ordered their product, they would get it faster (in just a couple days) and cheaper (since they were shipping locally). Shipwire also took care of all order processing, tracking and returns, enabling Andrew to focus on his full-time career and family.

ThoughtFish Media recently used Alibaba to find a manufacturer to supply materials for their newest product. The company said that before Alibaba, finding a manufacturer for such an obscure part overseas would have taken months of travel and research.

ThoughtFish Media continues its growth as a the leader in its industry, thanks to its unique outsourced model for growth. The company continues to be one of the only software manufacturers to support the arts and crafts community by constantly developing new and innovative products.

Keetsa

Online retailer Keetsa introduced a revolutionary, eco-friendly memory foam mattress, and in keeping with the company’s environmental and cost-saving commitment, developed a unique packaging solution that allowed the mattresses to be boxed for easy shipping to buyers, reducing transport costs and overall carbon emissions.

Keetsa’s patented packaging is designed so that mattresses can be delivered compactly through the mail. Despite that, traditional warehouses demanded long-term contracts, upfront fees, and a credit check that’s hard for a new business to pass.

The costs of owning their own warehouse would have forced Keetsa to raise retail prices and spend time managing the warehouse - time the company needed to spend on its core business. Instead of bowing to the demands of warehouses, Keetsa entrusted Shipwire with the shipping and fulfillment. Using Shipwire’s plug-and-play online store order fulfillment solution eliminated the hassle of storage and shipping. Now the company can manage inventory and delivery in a way that is convenient and affordable while gaining a competitive business advantage.

It takes an hour to ship a mattress from the flagship retail store in San Francisco, but mere minutes to log into Shipwire and schedule a mattress for shipping—a timesavings of 80 percent. Using Shipwire’s East and West Coast warehouses helped move inventory closer to customers, keeping delivery costs low. Less travel also means less fuel, lowering the carbon footprint of Keetsa’s mattresses by 400%.

Keetsa claims its online-focus is the key to its rapid growth. 95% of all sales originate from online ads, through direct orders on Keetsa.com or through viral YouTube videos of customer reviews. The company was recently featured on HGTV after the show’s producers found them online. Since launching nine months ago, the company’s sales have grown 2000%, fueled by online publicity and sales. They currently plan on growing their number of stores from 2 to 6 stores this year.