Blog Posts Holiday Fulfillment Outsourcing Helps Pura Vida Handle Peak Volume
It’s widely known that Black Friday through Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping days of the year. It’s certainly the most wonderful time of the year for Pura Vida Bracelets. When they first reached 15,000 orders on Black Friday a few years ago, they realized they had made it to the big leagues. And that was just the beginning.
How do they handle the dramatic influx of orders? They count on Saddle Creek for order fulfillment.
Fine-tuning Fulfillment for the Holidays
Handmade by homeless artisans in Costa Rica, Pura Vida’s bracelets have helped to take many out of poverty. When bracelet sales exploded in ecommerce and B2B channels, owners Griffin Thall and Paul Goodman realized they needed an experienced fulfillment partner and brought Saddle Creek on board.
They particularly value Saddle Creek’s ability to manage their order fulfillment, inventory management and logistics during the holidays. Last year, Pura Vida’s Thanksgiving weekend volume was more than 10 times that of a typical long weekend.
To handle the increased volume, Saddle Creek tripled the number of shifts, expanded staffing and added more equipment such as pick carts and RF guns. The team also changed the floor plan to double picking capacity and spread out high-velocity SKUs to streamline order flow.
Saddle Creek’s most effective enhancement was the addition of a cloud-based warehouse and inventory management system. The state-of-the-art system helps to ensure optimal efficiency, improve visibility, and accommodate a variety of order profiles under one roof. Best of all, it has enabled Saddle Creek to process orders 8 to 10 percent faster.
That’s no small feat. Pura Vida’s product line has expanded to include approximately 1,500 SKU’s. Fulfilling orders is an especially labor-intensive process since each item is inserted in its own branded canvas bag. Orders are shipped in poly mailers with marketing inserts.
Pura Vida says their fulfillment partner has performed flawlessly. “Saddle Creek has really blown us away with their expertise, their professionalism, and how fast they get our orders out,” Thall says.
Saddle Creek’s seamless systems integration, flexible space and staffing, and in-depth understanding of fulfillment best practices give Pura Vida the scalability to grow as holiday order volume continues to climb.
Pura Vida anticipates a 75 percent increase for the 2016 Thanksgiving weekend. Saddle Creek will be ready.
To learn more about Saddle Creek’s partnership with Pura Vida, watch the video.