An online retail company specializing in branded apparel, clothing, and equipment, IslandSurf had chosen NetSuite as its business management solution. IslandSurf needed to implement a solution that automated the myriad of manual processes necessary to work with a 3rd party warehouse. They wanted to free up employees’ time to focus on more value-add activities and provide customers with a shorter wait time for orders to be fulfilled.

IslandSurf turned to Celigo for help. Celigo implemented a fully automated, bi-directional integration with IslandSurf’s 3rd party warehouse (AtLast Fulfillment); supporting AtLast Fulfillment’s XML file format. This integration:

• Pushes sales orders to AtLast Fulfillment.
• Imports shipment confirmations into NetSuite.
• Imports Inventory Adjustments into NetSuite.
• Provides multi-location fulfillment routing.

IslandSurf realized numerous benefits from Celigo’s solution – including:

• Order turnaround time decreased by at least 50%.
• Man-hours were reduced by 20%.
• Customer satisfaction increased.

Case Study Details

IslandSurf’s Challenges

IslandSurf had selected NetSuite as its software platform and knew that they could not implement NetSuite without a solid 3PL solution. They required a solution that would automate their 3rd party warehouse processes to better serve their customers and be more efficient.

As it was, IslandSurf spent much time and energy manually doing the following:

• flag orders that need to be sent to AtLast Fulfillment
• export just those orders
• cancel any items on the order that shouldn’t be fulfilled at AtLast Fulfillment
• track and manually update the sales orders once they were fulfilled

Celigo Solution

Celigo’s 3PL solution provides IslandSurf with a fully automated, bi-directional integration with AtLast Fulfillment. Supporting AtLast Fulfillment’s XML file format, Celigo puts and grabs files off an FTP site, runs logic against the orders and fulfillments, and pushes this data into NetSuite.

In addition to the standard 3PL solution, Celigo implemented a custom SuiteScript that allows IslandSurf to rank locations in order of fulfillment priority. For a given order, Celigo’s solution determines the fulfillment preferences and tries to commit inventory from a single location. As necessary, the solution splits the fulfillment across locations, including AtLast Fulfillment. Furthermore, if a
backorder is necessary, Celigo’s solution assigns the items to ship from the default backorder location.

With Celigo’s combined 3PL and custom SuiteScript solution, IslandSurf no longer manually flags and splits orders to be partially fulfilled or fulfilled via different locations. Celigo’s solution does this for them – only sending the necessary items to AtLast Fulfillment.

Being in retail, IslandSurf processes a high volume of transactions each day. With Celigo’s 3PL solution, over 80,000 orders have been processed successfully in this automated fashion.

When asked what his favorite aspect of the solution is, Kelly Izer, COO of IslandSurf, said, “The headache factor – there isn’t one. It’s seamless. It just works!” Additionally, Kelly also appreciates the ease of use when it comes to status checking and troubleshooting. Using the Integration Dashboard that comes with Celigo’s 3PL solution, Kelly can easily see when the integration ran (every hour), how many orders were processed, and if there is an issue, what the issue is.

The Bottom Line

The benefits and returns that IslandSurf realizes from Celigo’s 3PL are numerous.

Order turnaround time decreased by at least 50%

• Prior to the Celigo 3PL solution, since it took IslandSurf so much time to send orders to AtLast Fulfillment, they could only send orders once per day.
• With Celigo’s solution, they now send orders to the warehouse every hour, decreasing delivery time to customers

Man-hours were reduced by 20%

• IslandSurf was able to repurpose employees’ time towards more value-add activities, since orders no longer have to manually flagged, sent, tracked, and updated. The Celigo solution has saved hundreds of hours for IslandSurf.
• Additionally, IslandSurf did not need to hire someone to move orders back and forth during peak seasons

All in all, IslandSurf finds the Celigo 3PL solution integral to their business, enabling them to focus on growing their business and further increasing customer satisfaction.

Additionally, The Grove needed a new vendor that had the necessary NetSuite expertise to design the right solution, execute on the design with accuracy and confidence, and deliver as promised. The Grove knew they wanted a web store that was technologically advanced and they needed a reliable, experienced partner to help them get there.

Celigo Solution
Celigo provided a cutting-edge web store for The Grove that “pushed the limits” of NetSuite ecommerce. Using a combination of suitelets, scripts, custom records, and custom web pages, Celigo was able to build an advanced web store that met The Grove’s high design aesthetic while still utilizing standard NetSuite functionality as the shell within which the web store was built and delivered.

The Grove’s unique product families and groupings – and the customer experience they wanted to provide – presented a unique challenge during the design of the web store. Celigo devised a way to bypass the standard NetSuite product catalog and templates in order to meet the following requirements:

• present related products in an easy-to-select method on one page
• enable customers to add multiple items to the cart on one page
• bring together different groupings of products together on one page and purchase without leaving that page

The following examples highlight how Celigo implemented unique, cutting-edge components into The Grove’s web store.

• Script-Enabled Custom Item Detail Pages: In order to accommodate The Grove’s requirements to streamline and clean the user experience when purchasing and checking out, Celigo created a custom page to present the item details. Using a custom record and SuiteScripts, Celigo created an item detail page that allows a customer to add multiple items to the cart on one page. The item detail page allows a customer to select item variations from a drop-down list and then click an “Add Another Item” button as many times as necessary – without ever having to leave this page, go back, and select the next item to purchase.
• Suitelet that Dynamically Filters Product Categories & Items: On the web store home page, the page body is a custom suitelet that dynamically presents the products when a user clicks on a product category (i.e. Top Tools). This enables The Grove to quickly and easily assign items to these categories and for the web store to automatically present the correct items to the users as they click through the store.

These features, along with the standard NetSuite shopping cart and checkout process, allowed Celigo to deliver a sophisticated yet streamlined shopping experience to The Grove’s customers – and a web store that took the best of standard NetSuite functionality, paired it with the best of NetSuite’s customization capabilities, and met the functional and budget requirements for The Grove.

The Bottom Line
As Bobby Pardini, The Grove’s Director of the Design Solutions Group, said, “This web store project with Celigo was as seamless a development process as I could imagine one to be. The Celigo team totally executed. When necessary, they gave us options and always figured out a solution.”

Celigo provided The Grove with a professional ecommerce solution that:

• increased revenue by supporting a new digital download revenue stream
• opens possibilities for The Grove to create new revenue streams
• provides a sophisticated yet streamlined customer experience
• can grow with the business

Their customers love the ease with which they can find products and information on the new web store and are thrilled with new features such as digital downloads. This new web store has positively impacted revenue, increased customer satisfaction, and maintains the same high-quality image that The Grove has built.