State & Liberty Finds Perfect Fit for Massive Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment Flex

State & Liberty, a men’s clothing company, was looking sharp from an outsider’s perspective. Their athletic-fit dress shirts attracted so many customers that the brand expanded beyond an ecommerce business to add 29 brick-and-mortar shops—and it’s still growing!  

However, underpinning its outward success was a set of outgrown shipping and fulfillment processes that were seriously restricting order velocity and slowing down shipping. 

State & Liberty leaders started searching for a warehouse management system (WMS) with ecommerce shipping software to ease shipping and fulfillment pressure. With Descartes they found the right fit and flexibility to handle their massive growth. 

High-Priority Shipping Problem(s)

Before State & Liberty discovered the right technology, workers relied on paper pick lists and pre-printed shipping labels. Every morning, workers would select five pick lists and shipping labels at a time, grab baskets, and walk back and forth on a warehouse treasure hunt. There was no map of item locations in the warehouse, so workers relied on memory and visually scanning the shelves. As you can imagine, this labor-intensive and time-consuming process couldn’t keep pace with the rapidly growing omnichannel business. 

Keeping Track of Shipping Labels

State & Liberty was printing all the shipping labels at the beginning of the day, then trying to keep track of them while picking items and packing shipments. Workers could lose pack slips or labels, then struggle to locate order/shipment information to reprint them. This posed an important problem because every label that was lost and reprinted would incur another shipping cost. Plus, it would cost extra time by interrupting an employee’s workflow and taking them away from other orders waiting for shipment. Imagine the frustration while trying to catch up! 

Slow and Error-Prone Pick-Pack-Ship Process

The paper-based fulfillment processes that worked for State & Liberty when the company was smaller and strictly ecommerce couldn’t keep up with growing order volume and omnichannel fulfillment complexity. Picking errors, labor costs, overstock, overselling, and inefficiencies negatively impacted the business. State & Liberty urgently needed to modernize the pick-pack-ship process to support both their existing order volume and ongoing growth. 

State & Liberty Wins with Integrated WMS and Warehouse Shipping Software

When State & Liberty decided to upgrade fulfillment operations, they selected the Descartes Peoplevox ™ warehouse management system (WMS) fully integrated with Descartes ShipRush™ warehouse shipping software. With the perfectly paired software combo, State & Liberty confidently executed a smooth transition from the old fulfillment workflow to the new. 

Landon Piazza, General Manager of Warehouse Operations, shared, “We were up and running to 80% of [Descartes shipping and WMS] capabilities within half a day—with the entire warehouse team trained and able to execute—which is unheard of.” 

Even better, State & Liberty now boasts warehouse efficiency that any ecommerce brand would envy. 

“For single-item picking, we can pick 50 items in ten minutes with standard-setting accuracy, where previously the task would take over an hour,” added Piazza proudly. As workers pick and scan the packages, the correct shipping label now automatically prints, replacing the old, error-prone method of printing all labels at the beginning of the day. 

“Even though we’re a much bigger company now, four people with barcode scanners do all our picking in the first two hours of the day with Descartes Peoplevox. It’s a massive improvement [as the old process took 12 pickers to do the same amount of work],” explained Grant Kiefaber, in charge of Special Projects at State & Liberty. 

Tools for success: Descartes Peoplevox™ WMS, Descartes ShipRush™ warehouse shipping software, Brightpearl retail operating system, Loop returns management 

Biggest Wins

• 75% faster picking using 67% less labor – Replaced manual processes with integrated software 
• +95% order accuracy – Eliminated keyed entry errors, lost labels, and misplaced packing slips  
• Rapid implementation – Up and running with Descartes Peoplevox and Descartes ShipRush within half a day 

Threats Avoided

• Overstock, overselling, and frustrated customers – Descartes solutions automatically keep inventory levels up to date in the ecommerce store
• Extra delays by needing to use a third-party site – Warehouse shipping software is fully integrated with the WMS, run in the background to enable label printing 
• Treasure hunts and inefficiencies – Software enables employees to know exactly where each item is, where it came from, and where it ended up, along with KPIs and analytics 

Need Help with a Similar Shipping Problem?

No one should have to deal with inefficient ecommerce shipping and fulfillment, especially while trying to manage rapid business growth. If these problems sound familiar, we hope you will do yourself a favor and make a change. Let integrated shipping and WMS technology help. 

Descartes offers free demos of our integrated warehouse management and shipping software. Speak to a team member about your specific challenges and see how we can help.