Project Snapshot
Industry: Beauty, bath, and body products
Location: Quebec
Company Size: 250 employees
Critical Business Issues: Delays and errors in shipping and fulfillment caused by technical challenges with Collins-Harper Canadapost Module.
OmniziO Solution: Improve accuracy and speed of shipping and fulfillment, and improve the customer’s online shopping experience.
The Method: Fix critical issues with the module and design custom features.
Time to Complete: 150 hours over one month.
The Outcome: One seamless, automated process between customer checkout and Canadapost delivery. Increased customer satisfaction and revenue for the business.
If you only had one word to describe omni-channel retail, which word would you choose?
The optimistic type might say “promising” or “profitable”. Even though we believe both are true, we know plenty of retailers who would opt for “complicated”.
We agree it is complicated. Customers, both online and offline, make purchases around the clock. You have to manage inventory, shipping and fulfillment across disparate locations. You may be manually submitting orders to your shipping carriers and any manual process is prone to human error. These processes also keep you from scaling your business.
It can seem like there are a million moving parts and too many software vendors claiming to have the perfect fix
At first glance, third parties shipping modules seem a major timesaver for retailers. It touts the ability to pull shipping quotes from carriers, print shipping labels and simplify returns — among other things. It presents itself as the go-to solution for automating your customers’ order fulfillment and delivery. But as you know, looks can be deceiving!
A MEDIUM-SIZED RETAILER WITH A BIG PROBLEM
A Quebec-based retailer of bath and body products was frustrated with their Magento site. They had installed the a third party shipping module, which was supposed to serve as a “bridge” between their Magento site and their carrier. The module was designed to make it easy for retailers to fulfill and ship orders across the country — while creating a seamless ordering experience for the shopper.
However, there were tons of issues from the start.
First, the module was not adjusted to the retailers needs. It required multiple modifications and code fixes to function properly. The retailer didn’t have time, resources, or knowledge to fix them on their own.
Then, support for the module was nonexistent. When the webmaster reached out to the module’s developers, they didn’t get the answers they needed. FAQs were limited, forums were nonexistent and there was no customer support phone number. Magento couldn’t help either because the module was created by a third party.
The retailer was essentially left out in the cold. Knowing they couldn’t compete with Canadian retailers without a robust shipping process and unable to find an alternative solution, they knew they would have to enlist help to make this solution work for them.
EQUAL PARTS CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TECHNICAL SKILL
The retailer needed an agency with both technical coding abilities and a deep understanding of Magento and the reality of shipping in a fast moving ecommerce world.
In essence, they needed someone who was as kind and communicative as they were technically savvy -- someone who would listen deeply to each challenge, and work closely with their team to fix the situation.
The IT Director and the webmaster at the retail company contacted OmniziO. What began as a Magento consultancy evolved into a deeper conversation about the challenges the business was facing with their shipping module.
“Things aren’t advancing as we’d hoped. It feels like we’re going in circles trying to solve these issues, and it’s taking too long for the developers to get back to us.” -IT Director
OmniziO was empathetic. Having served Canadian retailers with Magento sites for years, OmniziO team was equipped to analyze and solve the technical problems the retailer was facing.
Major Renovations
When OmniziO took a deep look at the issues surrounding the shipping module, they soon realized they’d have to create a good amount of custom code to fix the existing issues.
After the course of one month, OmniziO had worked closely with the retailer to fix each of the unique problems with the module -- in addition to creating an all-new feature that didn’t exist out of the box. OmniziO helped the retailer:
Adding additional shipping methods
Auto-calculate shopping cart discounts and promotions
Auto-calculate free shipping
As a result, shoppers were able to apply coupons and make purchases, securely, quickly, and accurately, all from within the retailer’s Magento e-Commerce website. Order accuracy and speed increased, resulting in a top-notch shopping experience for customers.
The benefits for the business, and for online customers, were staggering.
Before, the retailer had to take each order that was processed on their website and log it on the Canadapost website manually. This process was a massive drain on time, and very susceptible to human error -- not to mention it was holding the retailer back from scaling up their business.
Now, with all of the fixes applied by OmniziO, the module was now functioning correctly. Upon completion of an order, both the retailer’s fulfillment center and Shipping Carrier would be automatically notified with the shopper’s information.
Their shipping and fulfillment process was now quick, seamless, and accurate. Now that the module was up and running, the retailer saw a decrease in human error. And with the ability to apply custom coupons and shipping discounts, the business was empowered to create high-converting marketing and ad campaigns for their customers.
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