Case Study:
Silver Oak Cellars
Overview
Silver Oak Cellars is a California winery with over 400 acres of vines. Since its founding in 1972, Silver Oak has dedicated itself to producing Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
Benefits and Key Outcomes
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Reduced shipping costs
“The driving force was to receive accurate freight rates immediately.”
Linda Colliver, Customer Care and Fullfillment Manager at Silver Oak Cellars
Challenge
For years, Silver Oak Cellars relied on a manual, outdated freight calculation to determine what to charge customers for shipping. Unfortunately, the calculation was often incorrect. This meant that Silver Oak either had to recharge customers or absorb the incorrect shipping costs.
To keep customer experience positive, they were forced to absorb the costs, which was eating away at their bottom line. “The calculation was very manual to keep up and we weren’t recouping enough freight charges to cover what we were being charged by FedEx,” said Linda Colliver, Customer Care and Fulfillment Manager at Silver Oak Cellars.
Silver Oak’s increasing growth meant that if they did not find an API solution for rating, their ability to scale would be severely limited.
Solution
Silver Oak selected ShipHawk to remove manual, outdated freight calculations with an automated system that pulls rates on-demand. ShipHawk APIs dynamically apply customer and order details and receive accurate rates so customer experience is never sacrificed and freight costs are no longer unnecessarily absorbed.
“We reduced shipping costs by 13.5% by no longer having to absorb incorrect freight costs – which I attribute almost 100% to the change to ShipHawk,” said Linda Colliver.
In addition, Silver Oak was able to increase bandwidth by removing the need for continuous IT maintenance on their old solution.
"I’ve seen a tremendous decrease in shipping costs just by receiving real-time freight rates and it’s been seamless for customers.”
Linda Colliver