Order. Fulfillment. Automated.
How QuickBox’s new ecommerce system made picking faster, packing better & shipping sooner.
QuickBox knows fulfillment
In fact, they’re one of the largest private, fulfillment companies in the U.S. They help companies sell their products online through their own ecommerce websites. Then, pick, package & ship those products from their warehouses into buyers’ awaiting hands. Performing all the steps, from the moment users submit an order—until the item arrives at the front door.
QuickBox was suffering growing pains
They were reaching some limits without the technical know-how or staff to build ecommerce solutions themselves.
This translated to a lack of automation for their core business.
Too many people were doing too many manual things that computers do better. They hired more people than needed. With too many of them doing monotonous, repetitive work. And, spending time managing contractors for seasonal spikes.
In short… they were supervising people instead of focusing on their core business.
Also, as with many companies… too much knowledge stayed in peoples’ heads vs. written down in a central place. Important knowledge vanished when workers left the company. And no one person knew how the whole system worked. Warehouse-to-warehouse transfers were completely manual. With workers burning an entire day transferring orders between locations. This lead to missing SLA agreements.
QuickBox reached out to Commerce Architects
Some of the owners of QuickBox and Commerce Architects had worked together in the past. It made sense to work together again—this time, to build their new services. They knew we would deliver.
We met with QuickBox leaders to quickly understand their business and goals. QuickBox wanted…
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Automated processes that removed manual work
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Software that was easy to maintain for non-technical people
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A solution requiring minimum care & feeding from staff
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To pay only for what they used with AWS services that run based on customer demand
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To instantly & automatically scale their business as demand spikes & grows
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To make it simple to add & onboard new warehouses in the future
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To free up workers from fixing problems to doing more of what they were hired & built for
Ahh, a perfect match. As these are the things we are built for.
We integrated with the QuickBox team: One software architect to design the right infrastructure. Three full-time developers to build the right services. And one program manager to capture the right requirements. While also helping everyone achieve the right timelines.
We used our biz & tech savvy to execute everything using standard, agile best practices. Made it easy & obvious for leaders to sign off on features. Showed & shared progress early & often to make small (vs. large) course corrections, with no surprises!
Everyone was kept informed. With daily stand-ups during the project. Weekly updates to leadership. And demos of features every two weeks before they went out the door. They had automated unit tests to ensure new features don’t break old ones. And user acceptance testing to get feedback about features for users—by users.
Commerce Architects got to work
We met with business leaders to capture & log all ideas into a central source. So everyone would share, see & understand the same things. We engaged team members to rank all ideas & features based on value, effort & timing. Then created a roadmap to determine what to build based on their goals.
We had goals too
Like leaving QuickBox (and every client) in position to help themselves. By themselves. With value—not with a new dependency on a new vendor.
How? With…
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An intuitive architecture, clean code & clear activity logs
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Clean documentation & tools for their two new developers
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Automated tests, automated processes and automated deployment
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A series of best practices to run & maintain their systems
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Complete ownership of their intellectual property
In QuickBox’s own words…
“I reviewed several big projects Commerce Architects built for QuickBox over the years. I have 20+ years experience designing, coding, managing & consulting. Seeing what CA did made me excited for the first time when taking over existing projects! Everything was well designed & well documented. They used AWS services the right way, making it a dream to support & enhance.”
~ Aleksey Malishkin, CTO of QuickBox Fulfillment
By the numbers
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Reduced picking, packaging & shipping times of orders by 80 hours per week
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Reduced manual warehouse transfers by 2.5 hours per day
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Hired two full-time employees to build new features customers want & need
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Easily onboard additional warehouses without transferring orders manually
Automation sure helped during Covid
Otherwise, QuickBox would have had to find new facility & hire new staff. Also, Covid restrictions limited staff to a 1/3 of warehouse occupancy, while their ecommerce software continued to run the business.