Case Study:
Greenlane
Overview
Greenlane (NASDAQ: GNLN) is a global distributor of accessories for smoke shops, dispensary channels, and wholesale customers. Greenlane’s customers include over 6,400 independent smoke shops, regional retail chain stores that operate an estimated 8,000 locations, and hundreds of licensed cannabis cultivators and processors. They also own and operate two of the highest volume direct-to-consumer eCommerce websites in North America.
Benefits and Key Outcomes
89% decrease in processing times
ShipHawk’s scan-scan-print capabilities dropped processing times by 89% – from 45 seconds down to 5 seconds
Consolidated shipping softwares
Replaced six different shipping softwares with one platform
Consolidated internatonal volume
Consolidated their Canadian and domestic volume into a single platform
Seamless WMS integration
Seamless integration with Greenlane’s WMS, RF-SMART
Seamless ERP integration
Seamless integration with Greenlane’s ERP
Resilient seasonal volume spike handling
Handles seasonal volume spikes without incident
Founded
2005
Industry
Wholesale Distribution
WMS
RF-SMART
Ticker
NASDAQ: GNLN
"With our previous software, orders would flat out fail due to timing out. With ShipHawk, things are a lot faster and more efficient. We literally refresh in our ERP and see updates within seconds."
Jason Claxton,
ERP Developer at Greenlane
Challenge
As a result of their sustained growth both domestically and internationally, Greenlane had outgrown their previous shipping software which was built for small businesses. “Our previous solution was a locally installed software that worked with five other locally installed softwares. We have over 30 different shipping stations so that was not manageable for a company our size,” said Fabian Acuna, IT Director at Greenlane. “It was not a stable solution for our business because of the amount of softwares and integrations that we had.”
The absence of a streamlined shipping software meant spending time on manual steps that were driving up fulfillment times. Many of Greenlane’s products require domestic and Canadian HAZMAT labels, but there was no automated system for label generation. The team was forced to use a connector software to pass order data over to separate carrier platforms, all to generate a label. Scan-scan-print was no different – the team had been forced to jump between multiple systems which resulted in more wasted time.
Greenlane needed a shipping solution that would address their expanding market presence, which was restricted due to the limitations of their previous shipping connector. Additional challenges included:
- Integrating a shipping solution with their WMS, RF-SMART
- International fulfillment with Canadian carriers
- Volume spikes during the busy season
Solution
The ShipHawk platform provided Greenlane with a comprehensive cloud-based solution that reduced the amount of software they relied upon while improving the efficiency of their fulfillment processes. “For us, ShipHawk replaced our previous shipping solution, FedEx Ship Manager, PC Postage, Dazzle, the Canada Post portal, and the Purolator portal,” said Fabian Acuna.
Fulfillment times were dramatically reduced. ShipHawk’s scan-scan-print capabilities dropped processing times by 89% – from 45 seconds to 5 seconds – all by cutting out unnecessary systems in favor of one centralized solution. Automating HAZMAT label generation within ShipHawk means that the team no longer has to jump from a shipping connector to a carrier platform then back to the connector. Now the team can work in one system.
“With our previous software, orders would flat out fail due to timing out,” said Jason Claxton, ERP Developer at Greenlane.
Not only did ShipHawk resolve Greenlane’s immediate growing pains, but also allowed them to plan for a sustainable, scalable future – including expanding their business internationally. With ShipHawk, Greenlane consolidated their Canadian and domestic volume into a single platform.
The new scalability has also enabled Greenlane to seamlessly handle volume spikes, both domestically and in Canada, during their busy season.
ShipHawk’s integration with RF-SMART completely rounded out our pick-pack-ship process by providing access to more carriers and real-time rate shopping,” said
Jay Scheiner,
COO at Greenlane
"For us, ShipHawk replaced our previous shipping solution, FedEx Ship Manager, PC Postage, Dazzle, the Canada Post portal, and the Purolator portal.”
Fabian Acuna
IT Director at Greenlane