Customer Story

Why Lovepop’s switch to Brightpearl was a blessing that set them on the path to a billion magical moments

 “Brightpearl is a marvel. We now have visibility across all of our warehouses on a transaction level basis, and easy integrations have given us a significant competitive advantage.” – Dan Nephew, Director of Systems & Operations, Lovepop

Going Global

Founded by best friends John Wise & Wombi Rose, Lovepop’s unique and beautiful pop up cards were designed as an alternative to their more traditional counterparts, adding a new dimension to holiday giving and setting the business on its mission to create ‘one billion magical moments’. 

The Boston-based card company quickly became the disruptor in the $7 billion greeting card industry, as its one of a kind designs caught the attention of shoppers across America, and then the globe. Available online, at twenty retail locations across the U.S., and via thousands of third party retailers, Lovepop’s highly successful business sees more than 100,000 unique and customizable products being sold each month. 

But with the skyrocketing demand came operational headaches. The firm’s existing operations solution was proving inaccurate in its syncing of inventory and incapable of handling the large increases in order volume that the team was dealing with as a result of the brand’s growing popularity. Lovepop needed a solution that was capable of reducing any inventory errors and agile enough to handle the sudden changes in demand that are characteristic of the modern ecommerce space. 

Brightpearl’s user friendly order management system and out-of-the-box integrations with its Shopify Plus webstore and Shipstation offered a winning formula of flexibility and extensibility to support the rapidly expanding business.

“Rather than upgrading on our current software, we opted for Brightpearl as it offered what we needed to scale our business and efficiently deal with a larger order volume”, says Dan Nephew, Direct of Systems & Operations for Lovepop. “We wanted an accessible view of our whole business and a straightforward implementation process, Brightpearl delivered on both counts.” 

A Support Structure for Success

During the pandemic Lovepop has seen an explosion of growth via its online channels, in which sales were up 44% YoY, exceeding its expectations both in terms of sales and order volume. Over a year in which 38% of Americans have been let down by an online order, Brightpearl’s dedicated customer success team played a key part in Lovepop continuing with the high level of service it had become known for. 

“From a support perspective, Brightpearl has been great, the team’s willingness to help us problem solve and find creative ways of dealing with surges in demand has enabled us to maintain a high level of service. The order management feature of the platform is so important for our customer service team, who can now manage orders in real time.” adds Dan. 

Additionally, with the improvements to order processing and the flexibility provided by the Brightpearl platform, Lovepop was also able to leverage its design and manufacturing expertise to support the fight against the coronavirus. Last year it created and distributed more than 2 million protective gowns and 20,000 face shields to frontline and essential workers across the US. 

Speaking to the benefits of Brightpearl, Dan Nephew says “The level of integration and extensibility we have with Brightpearl would not have been possible with our previous provider. Being able to easily bolt on services has given us a competitive advantage and enabled us to offer extra value to our customers, especially in such a difficult time.” 

Building Trust with Advanced CX  

Not only has the power of Brightpearl given Lovepop a real time view of its stock levels, incoming shipments, and outgoing orders but the integration with Shopify Plus also enables it to be far more accurate and transparent with customers as it can update product counts in real time on its ecommerce store. 

“When an order is placed or a new shipment comes in, our inventory count is automatically updated in a matter of seconds, making it a lot easier to manage the fulfilment process and ultimately build trust with our customers via a consistent service,” says Dan.

“Brightpearl will be important to us as we continue to lean on those areas to improve our customer experience and drive growth,” adds Dan. 

“Because our business is seasonal, we rely on Brightpearl to help manage peak order volumes as well as year-round implications for managing growth in overall order volume. Having a system that can scale in both elements is critical to our success and is giving us the confidence to continue innovating in the online space and delight our customers.”

Brightpearl’s flexibility and ease of use has seen Lovepop smoothly through a tumultuous time in the retail sector and is proving a core component of their plans to not just disrupt, but dominate the greetings card industry in the months and years ahead. 

www.lovepopcards.com

Key Facts

44%

YoY Growth

1000+

SKUs

Shopify Plus

To run the webstore