Travel-inspired fashion brand Gandys has partnered with James and James Fulfilment to provide a fully outsourced, strategic, technology-led e-commerce fulfilment service to its customers.
Gandys has reported a strong and loyal consumer base in the UK, and is working towards international expansion particularly in the US, France and Germany. To support customers in these regions and focus on scaling the business, Gandys added it needed to improve operations.
Founded 10 years ago Gandys initially carried out its own order fulfilment from one small room. Following strong sales during the the height of the 2020 peak trading period, the brand grew to a point where it needed to take a more strategic and digital approach towards e-commerce fulfilment, in order to fuel its growth plans.
Furthermore, the business said it required greater supply chain transparency and visibility; more storage capacity for its products; and more employee resource to execute fulfilment cost effectively.
The solution that James and James provided Gandys has included access to its cloud-based order management system, called ControlPort. By integrating this software with Gandys’ e-commerce infrastructure, James and James provides the fashion brand with data and analytics about the state of its supply chain and fulfilment.
With insight on which products are moving quickly and which are costly, it also provides an effective returns management process for consumers. To support Gandys’ international growth, James and James also built a direct integration with a platform called Global-e; which enables Gandys (and other brands) to sell to 200 countries, with 100 different currencies supported.
James and James is also working to solve the practical ‘shop-floor’ challenge of storing Gandys products at its Northampton-based fulfilment centre; and its team now manages and executes the picking, packing and dispatching orders to Gandys’ customers. This outsourced service includes returns management. By working together, operational teams can now turn their attention towards growing the business.
Rob Forkan, founder, Gandys, said: “At first we were reluctant about working with a fulfilment provider because it meant that we would have to release some of the control that we have over our fulfilment to another party, and we had to be certain that this would not have a detrimental impact on our brand. But, our business reached a point where it became no longer feasible to manage fulfilment in-house, due to the number of orders we were receiving; so we had to explore our options, so that we could continue growing.
“A more strategic, technology-centric approach towards fulfilment was needed. Working with James and James has been a game changer for our business, and their SLAs (service level agreements) are fantastic. Our brand and aspirations are ambitious. We want to take our proposition into Europe and eventually the US. So this partnership is more than just about fulfilment locally, it’s a long-term commitment with a view to supporting wider growth into the US, as we sell fashion, and do good in the communities we trade in.”
James and James has been working with Gandys since September 2021. The next phase of the relationship involves continuing to lay the foundations for wider European, and eventually, US expansion.
