Balloon One has secured a shopper partnership with Moonpig, the main ecommerce vacation spot for greetings playing cards, items, flowers and experiences. Moonpig has chosen Balloon One to put in Körber warehousing and provide chain software program (which is now referred to as Infios) in a transfer to resolve current inventory visibility points and remove pointless inventory write-offs.
Beginning out in April 2000 because the UK’s first on-line card retailer, Moonpig Group has grown quickly to grow to be the main worldwide gifting platform, with a wealthy historical past of innovation. Over time, the Group has expanded its providing, including a variety of items, flowers, experiences and balloons to its vary.
Since itemizing on the London Inventory Alternate in 2021 the corporate has established profitable companies in Eire, the Netherlands, Australia and the US. And extra just lately, the Group has acquired gifting and expertise companies, Purple Letter Days and Purchase A Present.
To facilitate progress, in 2023 Moonpig opened a brand new, cutting-edge 120,000 sq. foot warehouse in Tamworth, Staffordshire, its first within the UK. The positioning, which is able to dealing with greater than 9,000 playing cards per hour, additionally operates as a distribution centre for the gifting arm of the enterprise, housing its whole gifting vary of greater than 1,500 SKUs.
Throughout off-peak durations, 1000’s of present orders are taken per day, however throughout peak instances – Mom’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmas – this could enhance to tens of 1000’s of orders a day. The warehouse often operates from 6am till 10pm, however throughout these surge durations it’s open 24 hours a day to be able to meet the greater than seven-fold enhance in demand.
Inventory visibility problems with the earlier warehouse system
Despite the fact that they solely just lately went reside with their earlier system, it didn’t supply Moonpig the flexibleness they required to satisfy their wants.
Richard Johnston, Moonpig’s Senior Engineering Supervisor, feedback: “We have now confronted challenges with the earlier system not being sufficiently configurable or customisable, making it ineffective in serving to us scale. One other problem we’ve got confronted is that it doesn’t combine properly with our different software program and has left us feeling as if we’re conforming to a system that doesn’t meet our wants, quite than making it work for us.”
Iain Swinton, Director of Operations and Provide Chain and the challenge sponsor for the change of WMS provides: “From an operations perspective, the outdated system didn’t permit us to have good visibility of the place our inventory is, which subsequently has led to us writing off inventory that’s outdated or lacking.”
Johnston says that configurability and visibility points have been inflicting issues with choosing and reconciliation. He provides: “We couldn’t perceive what inventory was in course of, which means we have been unable to precisely report inventory ranges to the web site.”
Over time, the WMS system was proving to be financially non-viable. Along with quite a lot of product strains being written off, extra employees have been employed to raised handle the inventory as a method of coping, and it was at this level a enterprise determination was made to place higher controls in place.
Körber WMS will remove pointless inventory write-offs
To deal with these challenges, Balloon’s complete answer for Moonpig contains: Körber WMS (now referred to as Infios); Springboard Server – Balloon’s proprietary middleware that enables a seamless integration with Moonpig’s ERP system; SAP By Design; and a provider integration to Royal Mail.
To help in selecting the best provide chain associate and expertise, Moonpig engaged the Provide Chain Consulting Group. Swinton says: “They’ve guided us by a methodical RFI, RFP and RFQ course of the place we went from 30 unique distributors right down to a shortlist of six, then right down to a shortlist of three.”
After on-site workshop classes and classroom demonstrations from all three, and with the involvement of greater than 20 Moonpig employees, the corporate selected Körber as its WMS. Swinton explains: “It’s been a radical course of, however everybody has been invested in ensuring that we get the correct answer to ensure it improves on our current system.”
Johnston provides: “Körber and Balloon stood out as a result of their stage of information. They might reply any query we had and will pull up a display screen and present us the way it could possibly be executed. A few of the different methods would want extra customisation, but it surely was clear Körber WMS was not going to carry us again.”
Swinton provides: “We’re actually excited in regards to the system and the flexibleness it is going to give us. We’re a tech firm with a number of technically minded staff who like to enhance and alter issues to make them work higher for us, so we’re excited in regards to the alternative this new system will present and the place it is going to take us in future.”
Working with Balloon
The workforce is discovering Balloon supportive to work with. Emma Whitehead is Supply Lead for Moonpig and is supporting the challenge aspect of the implementation. She says: “Everybody at Balloon is admittedly communicative. They’re straightforward to pay money for and can soar on a name when wanted.”
Richard Johnston provides: “The overriding feeling inside the enterprise is that we’re assured this partnership will present an efficient answer for our wants, which can permit us to work extra effectively and seamlessly throughout a number of groups inside the enterprise.”
Ed Napier-Fenning, Balloon’s Enterprise Technique and Gross sales Director, feedback: “We’re excited to associate with Moonpig and to assist them of their quest to grow to be the final word gifting companion. We sit up for enabling them to scale effectively, have full visibility into their inventory state of affairs and to remove pointless inventory write-offs.”
