Football League Championship club, Hull City Tigers has seen an instant 50% reduction in despatch time at its online shop.
Prior to integrating IT systems from Retail & Sports Systems and NetDespatch system earlier this year, Hull City Tigers staff, who ship hundreds of items a month, were manually processing orders from their web site, re-entering address information and then matching the labels to order numbers, as well as sending out emails manually. This process was open to human error, and was also time consuming which was preventing the company taking more specialised orders and progressing its own website.
The sole distributor of Championship football club Hull City Tigers official merchandise now has a seamlessly integrated solution for all their online orders, allowing them to print the correct 2D barcoded Royal Mail shipping labels and manifests, send emails to their customers, as well as automatically sending electronic pre-advice data to Royal Mail.
Sarah Crawford, Online and Retail Administration Manager at Hull City Tigers said: “Before we used the Retail & Sports Systems and NetDespatch integration, the order fulfilment process was manual –making sure all the tracking numbers were typed out correctly, along with passing on all the parcels to another colleague to be franked. During busy times, we would be receiving calls from customers about their purchases before we were able to send out emails regarding their orders, and the whole process was very time consuming and open to human error.
“With the new platform, we can pick and pack orders and print labels straight away, making the order fulfilment process seamless. We no longer have to use another colleague to frank the parcels, and we are now saving 50% of our time – time that can be utilised to develop our own website, and look after any special orders; such as personalising Hull City Tigers kit and tailoring special messages for gifts. We are really impressed with the difference the platform has made, as we can also now track our orders and billing, and analyse how well our ecommerce site is performing.”
Elsewhere in sports-and-logistics related matters, DHL, Official Logistics Partner of Rugby World Cup 2015, has announced a further commitment to the global game by extending its partnership with the men’s and women’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
In its role as Global Partner and Official Logistics Partner of Sevens World Series, DHL will build on its previous sponsorships of individual tournament legs in the UAE, USA and Hong Kong to deliver event freight and logistics across all 10 rounds of the upcoming annual Series, kicking off in Dubai in December 2015 and culminating in London in May 2016.
DHL’s support will also include logistics provision for some of the teams taking part in the 2015-16 season, as well as helping World Rugby’s development of the game among new audiences and in new territories through various grassroots initiatives.
Ken Allen, CEO, DHL Express said, “Our partnership with the HSBC Sevens World Series reaffirms our commitment to a sport which shares many of DHL’s core values, such as teamwork, passion and a will to win.
“We’re delighted to extend our support for the international game on an annual basis, taking our delivery of rugby to new and existing fans across the globe beyond the four-year cycle of the Rugby World Cup, and helping nurture interest in, and a love for, the sport among fresh enthusiasts and potential stars of the future.”
