Doing business online as a retailer is certainly a possibility. A good example of this is KM.Store. From their hair salon, Karel Leijssen and Monique Elliott worked out an omni-channel approach to selling Kevin Murphy hair products, which had been a hit with salon clients for several years. 1 year ago, they started looking for a logistics partner.
BME: "Bye Karel, who is KM.Store?"
Karel: "KM.Store is an independent retailer of Kevin Murphy hair products. The webshop was opened in 2012 as part of ELLIOTT Hair & Make-up, a progressive hair salon from Pelt. Within a few years we grew into one of the largest Kevin Murphy retailers in Belgium and the Netherlands. Through our hands-on-experience with these products in the salon, combined with in-depth product knowledge and a performing webshop, we make the difference for our customers."
BME: "Why were you looking for a logistics partner last year?"
Karel: "The growth made it impossible for us to continue to organize the logistics ourselves. We were increasingly confronted with the limitations of our own logistics operation. For example, we were faced with a lack of space, an over-reliance on a staff that was too small, and we offered too limited a cutoff time ourselves."
"You could then decide to tackle all these points yourself step by step and make the necessary investments in this, but for us it seemed more logical to look for the appropriate 3PL service provider. Very important was also that we could put the freed up space in the salon back at the service of our customers."
BME: "What were your main decision criteria?"
Karel: "Of course it was important to accommodate the above points, but as an ERP business consultant I still had a very strong focus on the IT capabilities as well as how they translated process-wise."
"From the conversations with Chris, it quickly became clear that the IT solutions were very flexible and that a link with Lightspeed was familiar territory. In addition, we also noticed during the tour that the resulting processes matched our needs and that we could even insert a piece of our own wishes into this. For example, we make intensive use of VAL (value added logistics) notifications in the wrapping process to add presents to the orders."
BME: "How did the integration go, especially with your knowledge in IT?"
Karel: "In 3 weeks, together we succeeded in establishing the link between BME's WMS and KM.Store's Lightspeed webshop, moving the goods and processing the first orders. The whole process ran quasi trouble-free and the typical teething problems were worked out quickly and professionally."
BME: "We are now a year on, what are the main benefits for you now?"
Karel: "The importance of each benefit will be different for everyone, but for us the benefits are many.
- The outsourcing of logistics, gives us space. This allows us to focus on our core business. This results in double-digit growth figures.
- The good support department of BME, communicates clearly in case of any problems and then also addresses them quickly.
- The cut-off time of 7 p.m. gives us a higher level of service.
- The stock positions are very accurate thanks to the way of working and the IT linkage.
- BME also observes all communication with the couriers of PostNL and BPost in case of lost or delayed shipments."
BME: "Finally Karel, where do your ambitions lie?"
Karel: "We are currently working on 11store.be. With this webshop we will distribute ELEVEN Australia products. We also want to increase our service level by, for example, integrating international pick-up points into our webshop. This way we continue to increase our service level and work on our growth without being limited by our logistics operations."
Are you looking for a logistics solution yourself? Feel free to contact us. Or are you curious about KM.Store's webshop? Discover their extensive range of Kevin Murphy hair products.