Background
Stokehouse is a global wholesaler that develops and markets lifestyle brands to independent retailers in the surf and lifestyle fashion channels. The company, with offices in California, France and Australia, has successfully launched Vissla, Amuse Society, D’blanc and Sisstrevolution to over 1000 retailers in more than 40 countries. Stokehouse had implemented a new global ERP platform to support the launch of their first brand, Vissla. The Australian subsidiary was looking for a B2B e-commerce solution to integrate into the ERP and support their sales division.
“Early during the research and analysis phase”, recalled group Partner, John Mossop, “we were being encouraged by our retail account base to connect the ERP to Brandscope, which they described as the best-in-class B2B platform. We spoke to our sales agents about the software and they supported the view of our key retailers”.
Solution
The Isync ERP was linked to the Brandscope B2B system via a simple API connection to facilitate streamlined seasonal catalogue loads. The integration also supported the automated transfer of orders directly into the ERP and inventory (for now and future) back into the Brandscope system. Price Books and Segmentation modules were introduced to ensure that Retailer partners were able to access live, accurate product information that was customised to their environments.
“The wholesale industry can be complicated when you’re dealing with multiple brands across surf and lifestyle channels,” said John. “From a Retailer and Sales user perspective, the system was very intuitive, but it was integral that the tool could also manage an assortment of segmentations across territories, multiple currencies and an array of pricing and discount schedules at the back end. Brandscope facilitated all of this and in a very streamlined and simplistic way”.
Outcome
Since the implementation of Brandscope, Stokehouse’s Australian subsidiary has seamlessly onboarded hundreds of retailers which has helped Vissla become a key, emerging brand in the surf industry. Orders are placed by Retailers and then instantly integrated into the company’s ERP system and distributed directly to the warehouse for fulfillment. It effectively removes the need for any order administration for both sales reps and Vissla’s head office, meaning more quality time can be spent on maintaining the relationship between brand and the retailer. There was also greater collaboration on pre-book orders with Agents taking greater initiative and creating suggested orders by month/category/price/colour to workshop with Retail partners, resulting in deeper and broader pre-books.
“The move to engage with the Brandscope system was widely welcomed by our accounts,” said John, “and it helped facilitate the rapid growth of the brand through both heightened awareness and ease of ordering. The platform entrenched itself within the Stokehouse business and we’re now using it as the primary tool for disseminating digital marketing collateral as well. From a sales perspective, it has become a one-stop-shop for the sales team and our Retailer partners resulting in a much higher level of collaboration and relationship building. The system streamlines and expedites the launch of new brands into the market which complies with our aggressive brand growth strategy”.
Testimonial
“The Brandscope system greatly assists the Stokehouse Limited group to quickly launch and grow brands into the market efficiently and profitably. It’s provided our business with the technical sophistication required to manage a multi-faceted business model with respect to broad pricing, territory and segmentation arrays ensuring that our sales team and Retail partners see customised, accurate information across brand, release and product levels at all times. It’s easy, it’s fast and it’s effective!”
