Aquacadabra: Helping the UK’s leading retailer of aquatic and pond supplies to redefine their operation, leading to incredible growth

Aquacadabra's story

The issues

In 2012 Aquacadabra had a small store in Bexleyheath and a small online presence by way of a website and some Amazon and eBay sales. Stock control was an issue and the despatch process was somewhat chaotic.

To give an example, items listed online for sale were also for sale in the store, which was inefficient as this would create oversells and result in unhappy customers. Something needed to be done to smooth out the process and enable the business to thrive and grow.  

The brief

Aquacadabra needed to have full control of stock, they needed a smoother more efficient, yet simple despatch process and they need this to be delivered in a package that was simple to use. The company knew that the potential for growth was massive, and they needed a platform to enable that.

The solution

StoreFeeder has enabled up to date stock management, meaning that as items are sold they are removed from the inventory. This has helped massively with reducing oversells. The StoreFeeder Warehouse Management System(WMS) has allowed the team to pick and pack efficiently. The StoreFeeder app is king in the Aquacadabra warehouse. The team can totally control all stock and locations the begins with booking stock in to assigning warehouse locations and stock movements. Finally ending with efficient picking, packing and the utilisation of barcode despatch.

Ten years later, the business now runs out of a40,000 sq. ft, two-story warehouse and in 2022, the warehouse team despatched over 450,000 orders (that is over 8,500 orders a week). Since incorporating StoreFeeder into the business, Aquacadabra can despatch fifteen times more orders per day and this efficiency has seen the business grow incredibly. Also, oversells are almost extinct and customer satisfaction and retention are at an all-time high.

AT A GLANCE

Challenges

  • Poor stock control
  • Chaotic despatch
  • The business was not fulfilling its potential
  • Urgent required for a system to enable growth

Benefits

  • Excellent account management
  • Technology constantly evolving to aid the needs of the business
  • The app has revolutionised the warehouse
  • Growth potential has been fulfilled and exceeded

Peter Amos the founder and owner of Aquacadabra says:

"Brian and the team at StoreFeeder have changed my way of thinking and have taken my business from a small online business working from a small shop to the biggest seller in my field with a purpose built warehouse and an operation utilising a high spec WMS system and PDAs that enabled us to be despatching more than 1,500 items a day.

"The system is robust and feature-rich which allows me to run an efficient and accurate operation. It has given us the capacity and capability to expand our product range and sell on more marketplaces than ever before. This has, through increased sales and high seller ratings, allowed us to utilise Seller programmes such as Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime, which we would never have had access to without StoreFeeder."