Holisol conquers eCommerce fulfillment with Vinculum’s Cloud based WMS

All about Holisol – a premier supply chain and logistics company:

Delhi-based Holisol is one of the country’s premier supply chain and logistics providers, helping e-commerce firms channelize and streamline their back-end operations to deliver products to the consumer timely and efficiently.

Founded in 2009, Holisol Logistics currently processes 70,000 orders, and manages 600,000 square feet of fulfillment centers across 14 locations. Its client list boasts of leading eCommerce firms – Jabong, UrbanLadder, and Cerana, along with brands such as Rangriti, Biba, and NDTV Smart Cookie.

The journey so far:

Recently, the organization closed a round of funding worth $10 million, led by the firm CLSA Capital Partners.

The six-year-old company will use the proceeds to set up more fulfillment centers, expand its last-mile delivery network and expand its portfolio of supply chain optimization solutions.

We worked with Holisol to help them deliver logistics solutions to their clients more efficiently and effectively.

The bottlenecks:

The Company faced several challenges while scaling up.

Holisol needed a solution to optimize their operations. The solution they were looking for needed to give them the ability to manage, assign and track orders, allowing for the real-time visibility of inventory across locations for all their different clients. We helped Holisol –

• Get a consolidated view of warehouses:

This ended the need for disparate client systems and enabled consolidated view of warehouse across clients. It also aided in report preparation for clients after extracting data.

• Automate its processes:

For certain clients the operations were being managed using excel sheets. This resulted in lower efficiencies and delayed shipments, a serious issue when handling perishable goods.

• Improve productivity:

We helped Holisol improve its productivity,by implementing a single instance of our solution for each warehouse location. This saved time for the staff since they no longer needed to have separate logins for multiple locations.
• Make Order Management and fulfillment easy:

Our solution made order management easier by routing orders to locations based on inventory availability, removing the need of manual order routing processes.

• Improve their inventory management processes:

o Holisol managed several clients, which was why client-wise segregation of inventory was a critical need.
o We helped them track inventory across locations, reducing turnaround times.

Fueling growth – The Impact:

We helped fuel Holisol’s growth by –

• We implemented an end to end solution, Vin eRetail WMS.

• Vin eRetail WMS helped them during EOSS (End of Season Sale), by seamlessly handling 10x the normal volumes of orders with 0 errors.

• We helped manage batches of their inventory with client-wise segregation, thereby enabling them to track inventory within the warehouse and increase efficiency.

• They had issues of mismanagement while assigning inventory to orders. Our solution helped them manage orders across multiple warehouses – removing redundancies in their systems.

• Our solutions helped provide real-time visibility to Holisol’s clients about the status of their inventory and order through access to the Vinculum Client portal.

What lies ahead?

With the fresh infusion of funds, Holisol continues to chart new heights in India’s growing logistics industry. The six-year-old company will use the proceeds to set up more fulfillment centers, expand its last-mile delivery network and expand its portfolio of supply chain optimization solutions.

We continue to work with Holisol – aiding them in their efforts to delight their customers.

Hear the story from Naveen Rawat, CEO of Holisol –

As eCommerce grows, logistics solutions providers like Holisol, ColdEX etc. would like to move towards B to C eCommerce fulfillment. With our ready integrations with last-mile fulfillment companies, we can empower key logistic players to go B to C with ease.

Our suite of products helps 3PLs achieve their expansion plans via ready integrations with leading marketplaces globally, over 20+ last mile delivery providers & leading retail /manufacturers’ ERPs.

Any tips or questions for us? Leave them in the comments below.

How to Sell Online – Globally

If you have a growing online business & are wondering how to sell across borders to increase your revenues, reach thousands of new customers – Here’s an exciting offer from us to sell online globally:

Vin eRetail Express is an eCommerce Management Software which has integrations with Top eCommerce Marketplaces like Flipkart, Amazon, eBay, AskMeBazaar, Snapdeal , Jabong, Lazada etc. & helps you manage it all – from a single interface!!

The Best Part?

– Sell & Fulfill Orders Globally on Top eCommerce Marketplaces
– Integrations with 8+ frontends like Shopify, MartJack, Prestashop, WordPress, etc. and 28+ last-mile fulfillment companies like Bluedart,Delhivery, Aramex, FedEx, DTDC etc. to help you sell and fulfill with ease.
– Manage all your Orders, Inventory & Returns: All in One place via Powerful Order Management
– Easy and quick setup – SignUp and Start Selling!
– Free 30-day Access- Pay as you Sell!

Get a free trial today!

To see how Vin eRetail Express can help you Turbocharge your Online Business –

How to find products to Sell Online

Sell Online 101 – Part Four: What should I sell online?

Previously in this blog series, we covered Lisa’s story of how she started to sell online. Read her story here.
You want to sell online. The next question is – What should you sell?

Picking out the right item to sell can be a hard decision, but it doesn’t have to be! How can you decide?

Here’s how Lisa did it –

Lisa has a business selling women’s clothing. Year on year, her business has grown – and now it is a profitable store.

After a while, her sales stopped growing. She wanted to grow her profits, scale up her business, and reach more customers. She decided that the best thing she could do was sell online.

When Lisa decided to sell online, she knew the products she wanted to sell. She used these factors to zero down on the right product:

• Know your audience: As every seller worth his salt will know, the first step for a successful online business is to know your target audience.

Lisa analyzed the demographics, buying behavior etc. of the people she wanted to target before selling to them. Lisa’s Fashions was primarily targeted towards upper middle-class women, who wanted to buy modern, trendy clothes, which were affordable.

• Analyze the market for your product: Maybe you want to sell handcrafted leather bags to Indian middle-class women. Or maybe you want to sell pumps to B2B customers.

Is there enough demand for your product? It is worth thinking about the target market for the products you wish to sell. How will you reach out to your customers? How will you market your products and run promotions? The Global Retail E-commerce Index 2015 shows the hottest selling products –

Identify your business strategy – What are your objectives and do your products fit them? Either you sell niche products and command higher margins but with a limited audience or you sell mass-market products and command lower margins, with a bigger target segment.

Lisa decided that the best strategy for her was to sell fashionable apparel to upper middle-class women with comparatively lower margins, but a greater customer base. She promoted her collection in several ways, ensuring that she used her promotions were her customers were most likely to see them.

If you sell mass-market products, you will find high levels of competition online due to the volumes of products on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay etc. Not only that, margins will almost always be lower.

On the other hand, selling niche products is a good strategy if you can stand out from the crowd, which brings us to the next point.

• Brand yourself – To stand out from the clutter a customer finds online, you need to brand your products – giving them the edge that makes them stand out. For e.g., brands like Happily Unmarried stand out, because of their unique products and quirky identity.

• Pricing – Price your products as per the comfort level of your customers. If you are planning to sell high margin products, ensure that your customers get the pre-sale support they may need to make the purchase decision.

• Shipping – Are you going to be shipping your products yourself? Or are you going to be outsourcing your shipping to marketplaces or third party logistics companies? Shipping can get complicated for beginners. The smaller the products you plan to sell, the lower the shipping costs associated with the products and the lesser the impact on your margins.

These are the factors you should consider when picking the products for your store or marketplace. Like Lisa you can use this list to narrow pick out the products you want to sell online.

Here’s some advice from Industry leader Hadi Curtay about how to select products –

Looking to sell online? With ready integrations to 15+ marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, AskmeBazaar, eBay, Lazada etc., 8+ frontends like Shopify,Prestashop, Magento, WordPress, Opencart, Martjack etc., and 28+ last-mile fulfillment companies like Bluedart, Delhivery, Aramex, FedEx, DTDC etc., Vin eRetail eXpress helps you sell across marketplaces, manage orders across multiple channels & fulfill with ease. Request a demo today.

Any tips or comments for us? Let us know in the comments below.

How to choose the best eCommerce platform for your business

Sell Online 101 – Part Three: How do I sell online

Earlier in our series, our blog covered whether you should sell on your own web store, or on a marketplace. Still trying to decide? Here’s the link.

Setting up an online store is one of the fastest and most rewarding ways to launch your own business. However, while running your own online store can give you control; it comes with its own decisions.

An eCommerce platform or web storefront allows you to display your product catalogue and makes it easy for the customer to discover your products. It also alerts you when an order is placed, and can be integrated to the website or backend systems.

Imagine that you set up your own online store – upload product images and descriptions, connect to a shopping cart, and start selling.

Now comes the more difficult part. As your sales start to grow, you have to manage and grow where you sell; manage inventory, shipping, handle taxes, etc. Why not make your task easier?

Here’s what Lisa did –

Lisa has a business selling women’s clothing. Year on year, her business has grown – and now it is a profitable store.

Lately, her sales have not been growing. She wants to grow her profits, scale up her business, and reach more customers. She decides that the best thing she can do is to start selling online. She can sell in two ways – either via her own store or by a marketplace.

In today’s times, it is not just enough to set up an online store with standard features.
Good user experience, Customer support, multi-channel friendliness are all needed for a successful online store – and an eCommerce platform can help do just that!

Which eCommerce platform should she host her website on?

Lisa decides she wants to pick an eCommerce platform for her store.

She compares her options across several criteria –
• Ease of Use
• Pricing
• User Interface
• Customer Support
• Features
• Category
• Best Suited for

This is Lisa’s cheatsheet –

There is no “one-size-fits-all” eCommerce platform solution. Each platform is built to suit certain business needs and goals. Choosing the best eCommerce platform can be easy if you compare the platforms and finalize one that fits your budget and vision you have for your online store.

Using this cheatsheet, you can now narrow down your choices of eCommerce platforms. However, this is just a front-end where your customers can place their orders.

You still need to process all the orders, inventory and returns, and manage and optimize your operations. By having an eCommerce order management and fulfillment solution, you can:

• Consolidate all your orders from multiple sales channels.
• Increase your customer reach by selling on marketplaces
• Manage your orders, inventory, and returns from a single interface.
• Automate your operations.

What Lisa needed was an eCommerce order management system and so does your business.

Vin eRetail eXpress is a SaaS-based multichannel order management solution which enables you to manage your orders, inventory and returns with no need of technical knowledge, heavy investment and low TCO.

To know more about how Vin eRetail eXpress can help you, click here.

Next in our series, Lisa decides to sell on marketplaces.

Any tips or comments about this article? Let us know below.

O2O Series: A retailer’s Imperative part III

This is Part III in our O2O series
The last post in this series covered Research online and buy offline (ROBO) – and how you can give your customers a seamless omnichannel experience.Read the complete post here.

Customer experience is key to enabling revenue growth.

Seamless shopping experience can get you greater loyalty and customer base. To fund the customer experience, Retailers can uncover new avenues for revenue streams.

New Avenues for Revenues –A Retailer’s imperative
Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, Snapdeal, etc. are not competitors, but partners in a win-win strategy.

These partnerships help you to:
• Reach more customers – Partner with established online brands to boost your business. This way, retailers can sell to online customers, expand customer reach and marketplaces can fulfill their customer orders from the inventory in-store.
• Build brand online – Strategic partnerships can help you build up your brand online. Findings by Forrester Research show that nearly 39 percent of online shoppers globally start their search on Amazon. By crafting a well – developed brand online you cultivate loyalty of customers who then are routed to your offline business.
• Drive up revenues – Partnerships with online players – can help you liquidate your unused inventory and push up profits, by leveraging your most important asset – the physical store.

There are many such examples – Argos, for instance, partnered with online giant eBay –

Make the most of your physical stores by fulfilling online orders via in-store inventory.

Ship from Store:

Here’s a situation – Imagine your customer places an order with you for a pair of Nike Shoes. Now to fulfill this order, you can ship it from the distribution center– but your delivery location may be far away, adding to the delivery times, shipping costs as well as labor expenses.

To close the sale, you can ship this order from the retail storefront closest to the customer’s location.

Ship from store allows you to leverage your in-store inventory, make use of the labor and capital already present in your stores, and reach customers faster.

Key Benefits:

• Superior shopping experience: Customers have the ability to shop from anywhere. An Omnichannel shopping experience helps convert digital hits into footfall in the physical store.
• Inventory Utilization: Allows you to use up obsolete and old inventory, which may not be used otherwise.
• Reduced delivery times: Shipping from stores instead of DCs means reduced delivery times – and happier customers.
• Decreased capital expenditure: Lesser expenses are involved, as there are no costs of additional capital or of setting up distribution centers.
• Increased Sales: Higher sales, due to the increase of brand visibility across a greater customer base.

Ship from store: Challenges –
Shipping from the store can solve your order fulfillment problems. It, however, has its own challenges:

• Lack of Complete Inventory Visibility – The key to making ‘Ship from Store’ work for you? Complete Inventory information. There has to be accurate store level inventory.

This information will help you track the items in-store. Misplaced items, especially apparel, can make inventory visibility nearly impossible. Data can help select products and categories for ship from store. Also, having a system that provides accurate, detailed inventory information will help set safety stock levels.
This is so that:
1. Your stores don’t ship high demand items that can be sold in the store.
2. At lower inventory levels – stocks can be replenished.

• Absence of Integrated, Single inventory Pool – You need a single view of inventory – from across your stores and online sales channels. For example, a customer comes in to pick up an order – but your staff finds that you are out of stock. If your sales associates have a unified view of inventory – they can ‘save the sale’. They can simply check inventory at the nearest store, and ensure the order is bought or reserved at that location.

• Capability to route orders intelligently – What if you could deliver orders to your customers based on their location of choice? Syncing orders between your channels allows you to deliver orders to a location of the customer’s convenience. Another point that you should consider is how you fulfill the orders. Will you do it via a third party logistics partner or your own employees?

In conclusion, retailers can leverage O2O to generate new revenue streams for their business.

Change your business with O2O – Request a free demo today.

Any tips or comments for us? Let us know in the section below.

How to Sell Online- And Make it Big!

If you have a growing online business & are wondering how to increase your revenues, reach thousands of new customers – Here’s an exciting offer from us to sell online:

Vin eRetail Express is an eCommerce Management Software which helps you sell across Top eCommerce Marketplaces like Flipkart, Amazon, eBay, AskMeBazaar, Snapdeal , Jabong etc. & helps you manage it all – from a single interface!!

The Best Part?

– Sell & Fulfill Orders on Top eCommerce Marketplaces-Globally
– Manage all your Orders, Inventory & Returns: All in One place
– Easy and quick setup – SignUp and Start Selling!
– Free 30-day Access- Pay as you Sell!

Get a free trial today!

To see how Vin eRetail Express can help you Turbocharge your Online Business –