TCO

We spoke to Ravi Panghat from TCO to discuss how Veeqo has helped take the business to the next level.

Trade Counter Online

Trade Counter Online (TCO) sells tools and supplies to tradesmen, constructors and DIY enthusiasts. They sell across multiple channels (such as his website, Amazon and Ebay) and ship with multiple shipping carriers.

The last year saw a huge increase in orders, from 3000 orders per month to 8000, and a leap into becoming a modern multichannel ecommerce business.

Before using Veeqo, TCO were using old-fashioned systems and spreadsheets that didn’t give them any control or visibility of their stock. Their inventory management systems weren’t cloud-based, meaning they had to be at their desks  to attempt to manage their stock.

Overselling, lost time and mispicks

Selling across multiple channels without an advanced inventory management solution connecting them together was causing serious issues for the business.

Trying to manage the multiple sales channels they were selling across without software to connect these channels to their inventory was causing overselling. They were also having to manually manage stock between sales channels. This was a tedious job that cost hours and hours of time, holding the business back from the growth they wanted. They were also printing out reams of A4 paper for both booking and picking which was expensive and bad for the environment.

Increasing orders by 166% with fewer mispicks and returns

TCO sells lots of products that look very similar on the packing shelf. For example, they sell sealants of various colours, but each one has an almost identical package. During busy times it wasn’t uncommon for the wrong item to be shipped to customers. A problem compounded by customers not realising the error until they started using the product.

This was happening across multiple products, leading to returns and unhappy customers.

It’s fair to say that TCO has had a stellar year. They have dramatically increased sales across multiple channels without any of the headaches businesses normally have when they scale up so successfully.

It’s no secret that ecommerce needs to be more environmentally friendly and that is something that TCO takes very seriously. So they were happy to find out that digital picking is saving them over 500 sheets of A4 paper a month. No paper is now used either to enter or fulfill an order.

Customers will not forgive you if you send the wrong item. We now have no more reviews about customers being sent the wrong items.

Reducing Mispicks by 91% Through Digital Picking

TCO has embraced Veeqo’s digital picking. They even have a rule that nothing gets shipped before it has been scanned! This is due to the range of products they sell, how similar many of their products are, and how busy their warehouse team is. For example, before using Veeqo TCO had about 45 mispicks per 400 orders. Once Veeqo’s digital picking system had been implemented this dropped to 5 mispicks per 400 orders. A drop of 91%.?

We discontinued our previous software on Friday, and began using Veeqo on Monday. We didn’t even  have to discontinue orders over the weekend.

Getting set up straight away

TCO was able to discontinue their previous software on Friday and get started with Veeqo on Monday without discontinuing orders over the weekend.

Transferring stock data only took an hour. Getting used to a modern UI web application took a little time after using an old-fashioned Windows 95 style interface previously, but overall Ravi and his team found Veeqo quick and easy to install.

Veeqo’s cloud-based system has freed up many of their employees from being tied to their desks when wanting visibility over their fulfillment situation. Now accounting, sales, marketing, and customer service teams can get the information they need from anywhere. Making it much easier to work from home.

Before using Veeqo, the account team had to manually add every order to their system. One by one. Due to their success, TCO are now fulfilling over 400 orders in a weekend alone. And you wouldn’t want to be entering each one of those by hand! Luckily, with Veeqo, they don’t have to.

In the warehouse with TCO.

Saying goodbye to understocking and overselling.

Prior to using Veeqo, TCO had little visibility of its inventory. This meant they often didn’t know what they had in stock. So customers were making orders that TCO could only fulfill by sourcing products from their suppliers.

Now the fulfillment team gets an alert when they are running low on stock.

Getting the most from bundles

Bundles are a great way to offer discounts and move stock. But the TCOteam were not able to take advantage of this tactic because they didn’t have visibility over their stock levels.

Thanks to Veeqo, they always know what is in stock and in what quantities.They can then use Veeqo to easily put bundles together based on what their customers want and what they have in store.

Customers have noticed that our shipping costs have come down and that we dispatch orders on the same day.

Improved customer experience

Key to modern ecommerce is meeting customer expectations when it comes to shipping and delivery. Veeqo has been able to help TCO dispatch orders on the same day and bring their shipping costs down.

Learn more about Veeqo’s eCommerce fulfilment solution can benefit you and your customers.