Executive Summary
- Amour Vert is a fast growing, modern omnichannel retailer that uses a sophisticated ship-from-store strategy to keep costs down as they grow.
- They rely on Pipe17 for backbone order operations, to connect 20 different Shopify POS locations, enabling ship from store order fulfillment.
- With Pipe17, Amour Vert can sell from a single unified inventory across all their retail locations and their online webstore.
- Pipe17 has become the “source of truth” for orders and inventory at Amour Vert.
- Onboarding new stores and 3PLs is fast and simple with Pipe17’s MACH compliant platform and merchant friendly administration.
- Amour Vert plans to add TikTok Shop in the near future and anticipates a smooth onboarding with Pipe17.
Background
Amour Vert is a retailer that believes passionately in a sustainable future. Their commitment to artisan-made elements, responsible supply chains, pure and low impact materials, conscious packaging, and circularity are cornerstones of the brand and sets them apart from other retailers. Shoppers are thrilled with the brand.
The company has grown from a Direct-to-Consumer web retailer to include a chain of brick and mortar stores across the United States. Their growth continues as they plan to have 20 stores operating in communities like Palo Alto, CA and Napierville, IL by the end of 2024.
Need: Order Operations
As a growing self-funded business, Amour Vert is intensely focused on maintaining their margins. Making this a reality requires an omnichannel order operations platform with advanced capabilities like order routing and splitting.
They were also looking for a solution that would let them leverage their existing tech investments, and that would work seamlessly with their 3PL.
Amour Vert uses Shopify for their webstore, Shopify POS for in store checkout, ShipStation for in store fulfillment, ApparelMagic for their ERP and Loop Returns to manage their reverse logistics.
Decision: Pipe17
Amour Vert decided on Pipe17 as their omnichannel order operations platform.
“Ripping everything out and starting over was not an option, and we didn’t want another big application to manage. We looked at integration platforms but they required too much customization. Pipe17 is designed to act as the backbone of our order operation. It gives us the ability to fulfill orders from store stock, or our 3PL, reliably, as we have grown the business nationally. ”
Leslie Street COO, Amour Vert
Order Routing
Amour Vert uses Pipe17 to take orders from their Shopify webstore and automatically route them to a specific retail store, or to their 3PL, for fulfillment. Orders are routed based on inventory availability and a distinction between “Clearance” and “Regular” items.
If an item is tagged “Clearance” then Pipe17 prioritizes routing the order to stores first, and defaults to the warehouse if no stores have available inventory, letting Amour Vert free up valuable shelf space for full priced in season items. For items tagged “Regular”, Pipe17 prioritizes fulfillment from their warehouse first, and then stores if needed in order to maximize store sales.
Orders routed to stores are delivered to a store’s ShipStation account for label printing and shipping. Pipe17 seamlessly connects to each store’s ShipStation account so there is no manual work required to turn orders into shipping labels and fulfillments.
Orders can also be placed in Shopify POS for items that are not available in the store. Pipe17 routes these POS orders to the warehouse, or another retail store location, for fulfillment. In store returns are also processed via Shopify POS, and any inventory adjustments are picked up by Pipe17 and instantly updated across every other system.
Omnichannel Inventory Management
Omnichannel inventory—for all stores and their 3PL—is managed in Pipe17, enabling Amour Vert to sell their entire inventory from any physical or digital location. Pipe17 connects to each store’s Shopify POS and their 3PL’s proprietary Warehouse Management System to maintain correct inventory levels.
Pipe17 also manages store replenishment by automatically monitoring inventory levels across all stores and reconciling inventory with transfers from their 3PL. If inventory should come up short, Pipe17 sends an alert.
Amour Vert’s operations team has come to rely on Pipe17 as their source of truth for orders, and uses Pipe17’s LiveOps Dashboard to answer questions about order status and to receive exception notifications so they can fix any problems before they impact customer satisfaction.
Future-Proof
Given their goal to expand to 20+ stores, Amour Vert wanted a “future-proof” order operations solution that could be easily updated as they grew. With Pipe17’s MACH-complaint platform, onboarding new store fulfillment centers takes less than 30 minutes and a recent 3PL change was completed in a week.
Street continued, “Pipe17 lets us use the applications that make the most sense for us. The flexibility is amazing.”
Next up for Amour Vert is launching on TikTok Shop, and they are not concerned. “Launching on TikTok Shop will give us the opportunity to showcase our values to a new generation of buyers,” Street added. “Pipe17 gives us the ability to add this new channel to our order operation with no interruptions.”
