Christies Direct

Automation is key

Colin Christie explains: “We first encountered fulfilmentcrowd at a trade show in Birmingham in 2011. Immediately we were impressed with their offering – they were able to automate order processing, which would save us a lot of time and resource. fulfilmentcrowd's ‘click history’ would also allow us to see where our employees were struggling and the areas we need to provide extra support and training to improve efficiency.”

The importance of forecasting

It was also the business intelligence modules embedded within fulfilmentcrowd’s platform that provoked the interest of Colin, particularly the forecasting module.

Colin explains: “Their system was able to give us a really clear idea of what stock to order based on historical sales and estimated growth figures - it was able to predict how and what our customers were buying."

A business minded, friendly team

Colin believes that it’s more than just the system that creates a great partnership. The customer service and faith in the software were also big selling points. fulfilmentcrowd’s commitment to really understanding how the business operated that shone through, a service that has proven invaluable to start-up ecommerce retailers time and time again.

“When it came to implementing the software, the fulfilmentcrowd team were very hands on. Before implementation we had several meetings so they could understand exactly how our business worked, what our processes were and how the new system could be tailored help us improve. As we went live we had two fulfilment reps on site to ensure the process went smoothly.”

Award-winning results

The now-automated nature of fulfilment has made a massive difference for Christies, growing from less than 200 orders a day to consistently fulfilling over 400. 

In 2016, Christies Direct were named Digital Team of the Year at the Digital DNA awards, as well as UK Digital Marketing Team of the Year 2016 at the Digital Entrepreneur Awards. Colin gave credit, saying: “We’d attribute a lot of our success at the awards to fulfilmentcrowd's system – it’s allowed us to gain an insight into our customers’ buying history to profile them, allowing us to craft the perfect campaign for each individual.”

fulfilmentcrowd’s reporting systems have also made a significant difference for Christies, enabling them to create a wide range of custom reports monitoring everything from stock to sales. Colin now dubbs fulfilmentcrowd’s platform “futureproof” claiming, “I’m confident that we’ll be using our current system far into the future. I can’t see a scenario in which fulfilmentcrowd aren’t able to provide the service that we need and grow with us.”