Customer Testimonial: Daddies Board Shop
Have you heard the news? ShipWorks is Endicia’s featured partner for May! As such, we decided to do a joint ShipWorks and Endicia testimonial today. Enjoy!
Daddies Board Shop in Portland, Oregon, is the largest longboard shop in the world. Since November 1995, they have grown their little neighborhood skateboard shop into a world leader in the longboard and snowboard industry, and they ship hundreds of orders a day. Visitors to their website select from hundreds of different components, and then Daddies assembles the customized board and ships it the same day.
One of the many amazing facts about Daddies Board Shop is that 99.9 percent of all their orders ship out within one business day! In fact, Daddies is so confident that they’ll ship your order within one business day that if they don’t, they will give you a 10 percent discount on your order.
How do they do it? That’s where ShipWorks and Endicia come in.
When you are assembling and shipping hundreds of boards a day, efficiency is key. Prior to finding Endicia in 2007, Brian Mitchell, eCommerce Director of Daddies explained, “we had a completely manual packing process. Our employees would duplicate steps and manual entry was common.” Order management and shipping was such a time consuming task that the executive team was forced into working in the warehouse.
Realizing that there had to be a better way to prepare U.S. Postal Service shipping labels, Daddies turned to Endicia for an automated solution for their USPS shipping needs. Endicia’s innovative solutions allowed Daddies to seamlessly access the benefits of the Postal Service, from discounted online rates to online package tracking. Endicia’s software allowed Daddies to avoid the Post Office completely.
As Daddies business continued to grow, additional automation was needed to keep up with orders. Daddies needed a solution that would allow them to access multiple carrier rates, automate shipping rules and manage inventory. After ample research and a thorough software evaluation process, Daddies turned to ShipWorks, an Endicia partner, to simplify their entire ecommerce operation. ShipWorks allows Daddies to access the U.S. Postal Service through Endicia and also allows them to access UPS for their heavy items they need to ship to customers.
The process and automation tools provided by ShipWorks have allowed Daddies to maintain their one day shipping guarantee. ShipWorks allows Daddies to do common tasks automatically, such as printing invoices, sending email, and updating the online status of an order. Automated tasks occur based on triggers Daddies specifies, such as processing a shipment or when a new order is downloaded. Other automation tools are set so Daddies warehouse staff knows exactly what box and carrier (USPS, UPS) to use. Customers are automatically notified via email when their order is placed and also shipped. Custom filters have been set up to notify customers if ordered items are out of stock and to even notify Daddies if a customer order has the potential to be fraudulent. ShipWorks’ automation tools eliminate the need for customers to search for a new solution when their needs increase; the ShipWorks solution fits any sized business.
Daddies utilizes a pull and pack system where individual customer orders are printed on 8.5” x 11” sheets. The warehouse staff member then compiles the order, assembles the board if need be, and prepares the package for shipment. Once the items are ready to be shipped, the staff member scans the barcode on the bottom of the pull list, and a shipping label is automatically printed. When the automated rules dictate a USPS shipping label, ShipWorks software seamlessly connects with Endicia’s technology to deliver the pre-paid shipping label. Daddies estimates that 65% of their shipments are sent via the USPS; the majority of those sent via Priority Mail. Even though Daddies provides its customers with free shipping, they still use Endicia’s Stealth Postage feature. Stealth Postage hides the amount of postage Daddies paid for each label, so instead of the label showing the cost of postage, it reads U.S. Postage and Fess Paid. Most of Daddies international shipments are also sent via USPS. At the end of the day, Daddies has a regularly scheduled pickup with their local Post Office.
This efficient process enabled by Endicia and ShipWorks has allowed Daddies to spend less time shipping so they can spend more time working with the customer and growing the business.
Brian sums it up well, “By using ShipWorks and Endicia, our warehouse staff has been able to save at least ten man hours a day. This leaves them more time to do what they love to do, longboard.”
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