Starshipit enables fashion brand Meshki to expand internationally

Star-studded fashion label Meshki has experienced exponential, international growth since their launch in 2014. Since 2015, Starshipit has been by their side as a trusted fulfilment partner, automating their shipping processes and saving the company 1000s of hours and dollars every month.

Thanks to Starshipit’s many native integrations, Meshki now enjoys a winning eCommerce tech stack including Shopify, Peoplevox, as well as carriers DHL and local Australia Post.

Read on to discover Meshki’s recipe for operational success, including how they save time and money by automating their international shipping.

With the company recently celebrating its 10th birthday, they’ve grown from selling accessories to wholesale, and are now delivering to over 150 countries worldwide. “It was the best $200 we ever spent," says Natalie.

In 2014, Meshki launched locally on an Australian domain. 2020 marked their launch into the US market, which grew to become responsible for 40% of sales only one year later. More recently, Meshki launched in the UK. Since back in 2015, Starshipit has been there to help scale their shipping operations along the way.

“We are investing in more technology and automation – that's something that we're really passionate about – and we are looking at a lot of different programs and technology in order to automate and streamline a lot of our operational processes.”

Shadi Kord, Co-Founder & Director at Meshki

The challenge: Tough times for growing brands

Evolving customer expectations

As the company’s Head of Operations, Damien Park-Nielson oversees the day-to-day supply chain and tech stack. He must keep a close eye on the latest and greatest in a hyper-competitive eCommerce space.

Whilst keeping operations afloat during such exponential growth as Meshki has gone through, he also needs to ensure they surpass any other shopping experience available. That’s no small feat.

“Meeting customer expectations in today’s retail climate is far from easy, but with Starshipit we can offer same day, express and standard shipping across Australia. We’ve got 8 different shipping services across 5 different carriers,” says Damien.

He continues, “This means customers can choose a shipping option that works best for them, which makes our brand really competitive.”

“We would have really struggled to scale if it wasn’t for Starshipit. Before using their app, our tech platforms weren’t talking, and we would have had to login to multiple carrier accounts to get orders out the door. Now, all of that is handled automatically, meaning we save 1000s of hours and dollars in fulfilment time“, Damien states.

The solution: Scalable technology at the ready

Taking the tech lead

With fulfilment being the beating heart of any retail business, the pressure is on to keep the company’s tech stack optimised for industry-leading fulfilment.

Naturally, Damien has done his due diligence and keeps comparing Starshipit against other platforms on the market, still concluding Starshipit to be the best option thanks to its many automation features and native integrations, with a wide array of carriers, eCommerce platform Shopify Plus and warehouse management solution Peoplevox.

Damien says, “When it came to choosing a shipping platform, we decided on Starshipit. The configuration and automation with the rules engine is a game changer. We have complete control and it’s easy to configure. All other platforms are quite rigid, but with Starshipit we can put our own parameters in place.”

On the topic of integration, he adds, “Starshipit was easy to integrate with our warehouse management system. We initially had an application with a third party, then we did a direct integration, and that transition was super smooth – it was up and running at the flick of a switch.”

One platform to rule them all

Damien is a frequent speaker at events and loves sharing his insights and knowledge on all things shipping and fulfilment, frequently recommending Starshipit to customers who are looking to automate their daily workload.

He comments, “Our whole tech stack is seamlessly integrated, and we have Starshipit, Shopify, Peoplevox and all carriers working together. All our orders are auto assigned to the best carrier option, based on rules we’ve set ourselves.”

“We rely heavily on the automation side of Starshipit. We take all our shipping methods from Shopify and route these through different carrier services within Starshipit. We then use rules to define PR (parcel receipt) on each order, for DDU or DDP clearances. We use that same methodology across all our international markets”, explains Damien.

Getting the team up to speed

Jodie Tarasek is the Operations Assistant at Meshki, and Damien’s right-hand woman. She’s also a long-term user of Starshipit, and ensures the team knows how to operate efficiently in the warehouse.

Reporting is king

Your operations are only as good as the reporting data at hand. Without feedback, many retailers are shooting in the dark with their fulfilment efforts, causing everything from dissatisfied staff, to customers, and eventually bad reviews.

With Starshipit, however, Meshki can utilise an extensive range of reporting features – and they take full advantage. In fact, they specifically requested to be able to measure their carriers’ performance against actuals, which has worked wonders for delivery targets being met.

Larissa McGovern, Logistics Manager at Meshki, says, ”As a business, we need to keep an eye on the amount of inventory running in the network at any given time. We can use Starshipit for in-transit reports and to track our carrier’s on-time delivery, keeping that metric at around 96%. We can then cross check this against carrier invoices to make sure we aren’t overpaying.”

With such a strong metric, there’s no wonder Meshki enjoys a 4.6 star rating and 90% positive score on ProductReview, as well as a 4-star rating on Trustpilot. Those are top grades in the high-demand fashion and apparel vertical.

Larissa adds, “Starshipit helps us reduce costs by introducing a number of productivity benefits. We're able to scale our operations while maintaining a lean headcount, and our fulfilment is now automated. Previous pain points with shipping internationally, like duties and taxes, are easy to set-up and configure in the app.”

She says, ”We're focused on finding the best partners to scale with, which is why we chose Starshipit to deliver better shipping experiences.”

Next steps: Are you ready for better shipping experiences?

If this success story has piqued your interest, there are multiple avenues to start enjoying the same type of growth Meshki has achieved.

For one, we can offer you a free, personalised demo of Starshipit with one of our shipping experts. They can walk you through the features on offer, as well as help you discover how the platform setup could work best for your specific brand and industry.

If you’re ready to get your hands dirty, you can sign-up for a free 30-day trial right now, and a member of our team will reach out to assist you shortly.

You are also more than welcome to get a head start by clicking your way through our interactive demo right here. We look forward to seeing you on the other side of shipping success!