Executive Summary / TL;DR
- FluffCo grew DTC sales 10x. They used Pipe17 to automate order, fulfillment, product, and inventory management between TikTok Shop, Shopify and Amazon MCF.
- The team eliminated 20 hours of manual work per week. Consequently, they could focus on growth instead of managing order exceptions and inventory sync.
- Pipe17 enabled easy multi-channel and multi-brand expansion. Thanks to features like pre-configured connectors, SKU mapping, virtual bundles, and support for multiple accounts of the same connector.
- Amazon recommended Pipe17. It proved to be the order operations solution FluffCo needed to scale their business, particularly with Shopify and Amazon MCF.
Introduction: Bringing the 5-Star Hotel Feeling Home
Remember that incredible feeling of sinking into a truly luxurious hotel bed? The perfect pillows, the crisp yet soft duvet, the feeling of pure comfort and escape? FluffCo was created to deliver that exact sensation. They bring the quality and comfort of 5-star hotel bedding directly to homes across the country.
FluffCo was born from the familiar traveler’s frustration. People loved high-end hotel bedding but found it ridiculously expensive in hotel gift shops. It was also incredibly difficult to identify and purchase independently. So, FluffCo embarked on a clear mission. They tracked down the same manufacturers that luxury hotels use. Then, FluffCo cut out the distribution chain and retail markup. As a result, they could offer these genuinely premium pillows, duvet covers, and hotel robes directly to consumers online.
FluffCo’s commitment to sourcing the best materials and working with top-tier suppliers led to significant buzz. For instance, they garnered accolades like an Oprah award and were featured on shows like Good Morning America and The View. This drove rapid order volume growth and high demand for their signature products.
However, this success story brought inherent operational challenges. Scaling a direct-to-consumer brand demanded efficient and reliable backend processes. This was particularly true in the bedding category with its unique sizing and dimensional weight considerations. As FluffCo continued to ramp up sales on Shopify and TikTok Shop, they quickly outgrew their initial regional 3PL partner. They needed a better fulfillment solution.
They found Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) a perfect fit because of their fast, nationwide delivery that promised efficiency and simplified logistics. The next step involved integrating Shopify and Amazon MCF. This would automate the flow of orders, accurately manage inventory, and handle order volume spikes without drowning in manual work. Ensuring the premium customer experience extended from the first click all the way to unboxing required a sophisticated, automated operational backbone.
The Challenge: Scaling DTC Operations and Integrating Amazon MCF
FluffCo needed to connect its TikTok Shop and Shopify storefront to Amazon MCF. This also included potentially multiple instances of each selling channel for different brands and partnerships. Building their own point-to-point integrations was deemed too complex and growth limiting. This approach would have required significant coding resources the business preferred to allocate towards top-line or margin growth. They needed a solution that was:
- Easy to Implement and Manage. Avoiding lengthy, technical integration projects and ongoing developer costs to maintain.
- Flexible. Capable of handling multiple storefronts, multiple marketplaces, and advanced fulfillment capabilities like virtual bundling and SKU mapping.
- Reliable. Ensuring smooth order flow, accurate data transfer between systems, and real-time inventory management updates.
- Efficient. Minimizing manual intervention for connectivity, order management and exception handling.
- Scalable. Able to handle significant channel expansion and order volume growth without skipping a beat.
Every day FluffCo lacked a way to manage omnichannel commerce integrations, backorders, inventory, and reconciliations was a significant resource cost. Andrew Leaf, FluffCo Co-founder, estimated this cost at 10-20 hours per week.
The Solution: Shopify and Amazon MCF Order Orchestration with Pipe17
FluffCo turned to Pipe17 as the solution to connect and orchestrate orders across TikTok Shop, Shopify and Amazon MCF. Pipe17 came directly recommended by Amazon. Amazon knew from prior customer engagements that Pipe17 offered the perfect blend of time to market, ease of use, flexibility, scale, and robust automation capabilities.
“The software is so easy to use that I was able to set it up myself without any help.”
Andrew Leaf, Co-Founder at FluffCo
Pipe17 became the central operations hub for FluffCo. It automatically pulls orders from Shopify, routes them to Amazon MCF, and sends fulfillment statuses back. Additionally, Pipe17 manages product and inventory updates across all of their channels. Using Pipe17 eliminated the need for manual data entry, CSV or FTP uploads, and complex integration maintenance.
Pipe17’s flexibility proved invaluable. FluffCo utilized features like SKU mapping and virtual bundles to quickly and easily test product configurations (two-packs, holiday gift sets, etc.) before committing to physical inventory bundles. Crucially, as FluffCo expanded their partner ecosystem, they required separate partner-branded Shopify instances. With Pipe17, they could quickly and effortlessly integrate these additional Shopify stores into Amazon MCF and their existing fulfillment processes.
Results: Exponential Growth, Time Savings, and Agility
Since moving to Amazon MCF and implementing Pipe17 as their order operations platform, FluffCo has achieved significant operational efficiencies. They also gained substantial ROI.
- Enabled 10x Growth. FluffCo scaled its business roughly tenfold, all without any operational or fulfillment bottlenecks. Pipe17 handled the increased order volume and changes in order orchestration seamlessly.
- Reclaimed Time. Moving from 10-20 hours per week managing orders and issues to minimal oversight was a game changer. “I used to be on the phone almost daily managing this. It just took a ton of time. Now, with Pipe17, it’s fully automated and fully scalable.” Andrew stated, highlighting the massive efficiency gain.
- Simplified Multi-Store Management. Pipe17 easily accommodates multiple instances of ecommerce storefronts and marketplaces for brands. It aggregates orders from all selling channels into a single, streamlined fulfillment process.
- Improved Exception and Backorder Handling. Pipe17 became the central source-of-truth for fixing any order issues that arose. “What I love about Pipe 17 is that it’s our source of truth for backorders, inventory management, order statuses, and all of these other things we were manually managing before,” Andrew noted. Pipe17 provides clear, actionable visibility into exceptions, allowing FluffCo to manage any problem effectively with minimal (or no) manual intervention.
- Enhanced Flexibility and Testing. With features like virtual bundling, FluffCo was able to be agile in its product offerings and inventory management. Inventory availability for virtual bundles and their individual SKUs both update automatically as orders are received or new stock arrives.
- Operational Reliability and Control. Pipe17 runs autonomously, requiring the FluffCo team to take action only for specific exception scenarios or new configurations.
Conclusion: Connectivity + Order Orchestration = Frictionless Growth
For FluffCo, Pipe17 proved to be much more than just a connectivity solution. It became a foundational element that enabled TikTok Shop, Shopify and Amazon MCF to scale. By automating the flow of orders and inventory management between their selling and fulfillment channels, Pipe17 eliminated significant manual effort for FluffCo. This freed the team up to experiment with more agile product bundles, onboard multiple partner-branded storefronts, and make their operations even more efficient. In short, Pipe17 allowed FluffCo to confidently leverage the fulfillment power and speed of Amazon MCF. They did this while maintaining operational control and flexibility every step of the way.
“Pipe17 just perfectly solved the problems we were having as a rapidly growing brand.”
Andrew Leaf, Co-Founder at FluffCo