Go Mobile:The Secret to Saving 80% of Fulfilment Time

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: Welcome to today's session on how you can go mobile and save 80% of fulfilment time. I'm Alex from Starshipit, and I'm your host today. Thank you so much for joining. Peak season is coming up, so it's great to have your ears.

Today we are talking about something close to my heart: how going mobile can completely change the way you handle fulfilment. We will look at challenges many retailers face right now, and how one small operational change like going mobile can make a huge difference to your customer experience.

First up, we've got Chris Bradley, Managing Director at Luna Rae. Chris and I have worked closely on their mobile fulfilment journey, and what they've achieved has been incredible. They've cut fulfilment time by 80% and saved over $20,000 in six months.

Welcome, Chris. We are also joined by Francis Limousy from Socket Mobile. He's one of the brains behind the scanning technology that helps make results like Chris's possible. Welcome, Francis.

Francis Limousy, Socket Mobile: Hey, Alex. Nice to be here.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: Just a little bit of housekeeping before we jump into it. Today's session is being recorded and we'll send out the on-demand link afterwards so you can rewatch and share it with your team. We will also finish up with a live Q&A, so save your questions and drop them in the box any time.

Before we talk about the how, I wanted to talk about the why. Over the past few years, I've spoken to many retailers wearing both a product and support hat. No matter the size of the business, the same themes come up: paper slows everything down, manual checking leads to mistakes, real-time visibility is hard, seasonal staff add overhead, and too many systems slow everything down.

After hearing this so many times, it felt like automation and technology stopped at the packing bench. We saw an opportunity to take everything Starshipit does well to the warehouse floor.

A common stack might send orders into a WMS, through picking, packing, shipping, then into Starshipit, through the rules engine, to label creation and then to the carrier. There are lots of places for data to go, and lots of places for it to fail.

Another option is using Starshipit with paper. There are fewer steps, but still manual steps like printing a packing summary or packing slips before the label print.

What we wanted to achieve is a flow where orders move into Starshipit, through the rules engine, straight to the mobile app for picking, packing and carrier handoff. The steps are cut way down, which means the time from order placed to carrier handoff is shorter.

You can set up phones to match your team roles. Some businesses have pickers and packers, some people do both, and some use the phone just for picking while packing and labels happen on desktop. The app supports those flows.

Totes are another configurable option. They allow a seamless handoff between someone picking and someone packing. The picker puts items into a container, then the packer can bring up the specific order picked into that tote.

Barcode validation is one of the most important steps. As you're picking and packing, you can use your phone camera or a Socket scanner to validate items as you go. The app shows how many you need, flags errors if you scan the wrong item, and gives audible cues.

The final part is getting the label. Select your packaging, select your carrier and hit print. By the time you walk to the printer, the label is already waiting for you.

Packing through the mobile app also gives you an audit trail and accountability. Because we know who picked and packed an order, we can store that against orders in Starshipit. You can also take a photo before the box goes out, so if you need to prove what was sent, that image is ready for you.

That was a quick run-through of the mobile app. Now we'll jump into Q&A, starting with you, Chris. Would you be able to tell us a little bit about Luna Rae?

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: Luna Rae is an Australian-based jewellery brand specialising in fine gold and diamonds. We're also starting to launch silver and other collections. We're probably doing about 1,000 orders a month and expanding at about three times per annum.

We have high-value orders around $300 to $350 AUD per order. We use Australia Post for Australian deliveries, and FedEx and DHL eCommerce for international orders.

Most of our orders are a little different from a normal eCommerce company. We assemble items by putting a pendant on a necklace and so forth. Our engraving also needs multiple fulfilment orders.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: Awesome. I definitely have my eye on a few things on your store there, Chris. Would you be able to give us a quick run-through of your setup?

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: Our setup is very simple now. In the morning, pickers open the mobile application, go to the picking tab, sort by an automatic tag on the orders, then for each order they scan a unique tote and scan each item on the order into the tote.

During this time, the customer service team can adjust orders if needed. If there's an issue, customer service reaches out to the packers via internal comms like Slack, advising the tote number and holding it until the issue is resolved.

Once an order is picked, it is available for the packer in the packing tab. The packer scans the tote, scans each item in the tote, assembles the order, takes a picture of the items and prints the label.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: You mentioned taking photos throughout the process. How has that helped with your customer support issues?

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: Taking images of items when they're dispatched is a lifesaver. It lets customer service agents, especially the international team, see what was actually in the order. If a customer reaches out with a product issue, a missing item or a quality issue, we can compare what we sent with what they've sent us.

Double scanning also makes sure items have been in the totes throughout the process. That's super key during peak season because it gives you confidence that items are going out correctly.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: One of the things we've highlighted is that you mentioned an 80% reduction in fulfilment time. What parts of the process would you say created the biggest time savings?

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: The biggest time savings came from the pre-pick setup, picking and arranging orders. Without the mobile app, we needed to print consolidated pick slips multiple times throughout the day, along with individual pick slips and shipping labels.

We also had to select each order manually, check there were no open customer service requests, bulk pick into a consolidated tote, then sort into individual orders for assembly and dispatch. If any item was missing or over-picked, every order in that batch had to be rechecked.

Pre-pick setup used to take around 10 to 15 minutes, then another 10 to 15 minutes to bulk pick, confirm items manually and sort into individual totes. Comparatively, it takes about 10 to 15 seconds per order to do that pick now. Instead of 25 to 30 minutes for 20 orders, it takes five to six minutes total.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: Those are great to see, and they're all related to the actual fulfilment process. Were there any time savings you found that were not directly related to picking and packing?

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: There were also savings outside the picking and packing process. Accurate picking and packing through double validation scanning and images reduces customer service flows because items are dispatched correctly. There are fewer returns and fewer return costs due to incorrect items being sent.

The process is less reliant on a picker's ability to follow a complex SOP. Overall, customer satisfaction is higher because customers have confidence in the business, which increases revenue and repeat sales.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: That's so interesting to hear. It's hard to quantify those savings other than knowing you've got happier customers, which is great to hear. You also saved over $20,000 in six months. Could you break down where those cost savings came from?

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: We saved over $20,000 from removing our ERP from the stack, which was about $17,000 AUD per annum. We also saved approximately $500 to $600 in printing costs, and probably another $10,000 to $15,000 from accounting costs because we no longer need a separate system to reconcile everything.

Instead of Shopify, an ERP, Starshipit and our accounting system, we can now largely use Shopify, Starshipit and accounting directly. There are probably more savings too, because a less complicated stack needs less management.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: When you put it like that, all of those things really add up. Thanks very much, Chris. We'll move on to Francis. Francis, would you be able to tell us a little bit about how Socket Mobile is helping merchants today?

Francis Limousy, Socket Mobile: Socket Mobile provides data capture solutions for merchants and other industries. That includes barcode scanners, RFID scanners and companion-style scanners that can attach to your phone for a one-handed solution.

A recent merchant story shows how this works in practice. A pop-up store selling tiaras needed very small labels so customers could try items on without a large label dangling from the product. They used Socket Mobile scanners with Shopify, which allowed them to scan very small labels accurately in a busy retail environment without compromising the shopper experience.

That small operational change had a tangible impact on business results because conversion rates were higher once they moved to smaller labels and reliable scanning.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: That's a great example. Chris and Francis, how did you end up linking up? What was the need to go with Socket?

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: Socket is the leader in scanners in my view. It works with Shopify POS natively, has good support across Android and iOS, supports application mode and standard keyboard mode, and the devices last for a very long time. We need things we can rely on, and that's why we picked those devices.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: They look pretty slick in the video content I've seen of them as well. Francis, with peak season coming up, are there any best practices for managing the scanners day to day, such as keeping them charged or other tips?

Francis Limousy, Socket Mobile: For day-to-day scanner management, merchants should know that scanners already include additional features they can use. One common example is multiscan control. Products often arrive with manufacturer UPCs, QR codes and the merchant's own SKU label. Staff can accidentally scan the wrong code.

You can program the scanner to disregard all other codes and only scan the merchant SKU. That saves time in fulfilment, returns and inventory counts. No one likes doing inventory counts, and while we can't make them disappear, we can make them easier.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: Those are great tips, and definitely things I hadn't considered. We have a couple of questions from the audience as well, which I think we can jump into.

For questions about stock on hand, the mobile app and Starshipit generally do not manage stock on hand. Starshipit receives the order once it has been validated and ordered in Shopify or another channel. Inventory is usually managed in Shopify, and the order then flows into Starshipit.

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: I very much like Shopify's inventory management because that's the front end of everything. We make sure inventory, bundling and those components are done in Shopify rather than in a third-party platform, because sync issues between channels can cause problems, especially in peak.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: For packing slips, the mobile app flow typically removes the need for a packing slip. There is desktop functionality to print packing slips automatically if you need something in the box, but the app's double scan can remove some of the need for that paper step.

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: You can print packing slips on A4 paper with a barcode, scan it in the application to load the order for a packing stage, and include it through the process. We don't include them because it's not something that's needed in our industry, but we tested that and it does work.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: Multiple team members can work across the same set of orders. You can have pickers and packers, or one person doing both. A picker can pick orders into totes and hand them to a packing station, where a packer scans the tote and continues the order.

For totes, you load tote barcodes into the app. As you pick, the app tells you which tote each item belongs in and flags if you try to put it in the wrong tote. At packing, the packer scans the tote barcode and brings up the order or orders in that tote.

For gift notes or special requests, the app should work much like a digital pick slip. If the order imports a note from Shopify, that note can be shown in the app. Tags can also be used so the team can see that an order needs a note or special handling.

Batch and bulk picking works in the mobile app. You can select five, 10 or 20 orders at once, and the app can sort items by bin location so the picker follows an optimised route. Packing is more commonly handled one order at a time, but batch packing is also available.

The app is carrier agnostic. You can add carriers to Starshipit, preselect them with rules, then pack and print through the mobile app. If you need to change the carrier at print time, you can do that too.

Chris and Francis, did you have anything else you wanted to add?

Francis Limousy, Socket Mobile: Nothing else on my side. Thanks so much, Alex.

Chris Bradley, Luna Rae: Nothing on my side either. Thanks for having us.

Alex Lesa, Starshipit: It's been awesome chatting. Thanks everyone for tuning in.