Case Study:
FARMHOUSE POTTERY
Overview
Farmhouse Pottery, established in 2012, creates handcrafted pottery and
supplements its offerings with items in home and garden décor, wood and glass
products, enamelware, and cookware, among many others. The company has two
retail locations in Woodstock, VT and Hanover, NH with the single manufacturing
studio at the Woodstock flagship location.
Farmhouse Pottery sells its products via in-store retail, eCommerce and B2B in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The company has nine dropship partnerships with companies including Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, and Zola. Most products are shipped via parcel,
but due to order demand, Farmhouse Pottery is also shipping a small but increasing number of LTL shipments.
Benefits and Key Outcomes
Ability to grow without adding headcount
Improved planning and scheduling
Gained visibility and metrics of packing and shipping operations
Challenge
During the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdown, Farmhouse Pottery worked creatively to meet customer demand for its
handmade products as it faced a significant increase in customer orders. “Our distribution was growing rapidly and we needed
solutions to successfully grow and scale our operations,” said Kim Gaines, Operations Manager at Farmhouse Pottery.
The company also needed a better shipping solution that would integrate seamlessly with NetSuite, its ERP. Another critical
consideration for Farmhouse Pottery was being able to rate shop and find the best carrier for each product and shipment, at the
right time, in the right sized box. As most of its products are extremely fragile and each shipment has a unique size and weight,
the company needed flexibility and the means to identify the best shipping rate to meet customer expectations.
Solution
“It’s not often that you instantly feel like it’s the right solution, at the right time, with the right partner,” said Gaines. “That’s what
happened when Farmhouse Pottery met ShipHawk. Everything about it seemed to be the right fit for us.”
By implementing ShipHawk’s fulfillment solution for NetSuite, Farmhouse Pottery has gained the visibility and data it needs to
track shipments and scale operations. “It was important, when we invested in NetSuite, that any tool or solution we use integrate
with NetSuite,” said Gaines. “The fact that ShipHawk is integrated and built into the functionality of our day-to-day operations was
a no brainer for us.”
Using ShipHawk’s rate shopping feature, Farmhouse Pottery can easily identify the best carrier and service level for each unique
shipment. “Our carriers have embraced our relationship with ShipHawk, giving us visibility into all the rates available to us to meet
customer expectations,” said Gaines.
Farmhouse Pottery now updates and syncs shipment details, whether that be domestic and international parcel or LTL from
ShipHawk into NetSuite. With each shipment, the information written back to NetSuite helps streamline the process of notifying
customers in Shopify, its eCommerce shopping cart, with accurate details related to their shipment while keeping Farmhouse
Pottery’s system of record up to date.
One of the biggest operational benefits that ShipHawk has enabled for me is seeing how my
packers are doing, how quickly they’re putting our fragile products into boxes and getting
those boxes out the door.
Scalability is essential for Farmhouse Pottery, located in a rural area, with a small team. The team needs to continue to grow and
scale to meet increasing customer demand using technology to help move the needle forward. “Without the level of data we’re
getting from ShipHawk, it would be harder to schedule, plan, and scale our operations, especially as we head into our busy
season,” said Gaines.
“It’s important when picking a partner that we know we can trust them, call them, work with them and know they have my back
and will help me be successful,” said Gaines. “ShipHawk did a phenomenal job when we implemented the solution and they did
it quickly.”