How Crusader runs three businesses on one platform with StoreFeeder

The issues

Outgrowing an unreliable system

Crusader is a family-run business with three trading divisions: Crusader Gifts, a B2C homeware, fragrance and gifting brand; Woodside Home Living, its own-brand trade website; and Crusader AV, a B2B audiovisual business.

The team had already been through two systems before StoreFeeder. They started on a platform built in-house, then moved to an off-the-shelf package. That off-the-shelf package was where the trouble started. Admin was slow, bugs went unfixed, and the team was logging support tickets daily. Every problem had a knock-on effect across the wider operation.

The most damaging issue was stock. Listings did not update across channels quickly, so the team sometimes sold the same item twice and had to go back to customers to apologise. During peak periods like Christmas, that was a real risk to both reputation and sales.

The brief

One system for three businesses and every channel

Crusader needed a single platform that could hold the whole operation together.
The goals were clear:

• Replace an unreliable system with one built to keep stock accurate fast.
• Run three trading divisions and several sales channels from one place.
• Speed up everyday warehouse and admin tasks for a small, busy team.
• Keep everything accessible from anywhere, for owners and staff alike.

The solution

Accurate stock and fast workflows across every channel

StoreFeeder brought all three businesses and every sales channel into one platform. Crusader now manages three Shopify storefronts alongside Amazon, eBay, B&Q and OnBuy, plus phone orders, with stock updating across all of them. That single change removed a long-standing source of friction.

"Our last system wasn't updating stock, so we'd have to go back to a customer and say we'd just sold that item on another channel. With StoreFeeder, we don't have that embarrassment anymore."

StoreFeeder also gave the team granular control over storage. The warehouse is mapped right down to individual bins within shelves, racks, floors and buildings, and a single bin can hold more than one product.

"Many systems will only let you have one product per bin. StoreFeeder lets us have multiple products in one bin, which helps with location, storage and the sheer volume of product we hold."

The speed of the system made an immediate difference to daily work.

"Within a week, I could do more work than I'd been doing in a month."

It is also easy to learn. New staff pick it up quickly, whether they are entering phone orders or using handheld scanners in the warehouse. Because StoreFeeder is web-based, the family can work flexibly across all three businesses.

Behind the scenes, goods-in and put-away are handled quickly and accurately, reporting is available on demand, and Crusader AV uses StoreFeeder to book and track direct shipments from distribution through to the end customer.

"I can manipulate reports however I want, whether I'm checking stock reordering or whether something's listed on a channel. It's at my fingertips, at the touch of a couple of buttons."

The impact

Faster operations, accurate stock, room to grow

Moving to StoreFeeder delivered clear, day-to-day benefits:

• Stock updates across every channel, ending overselling and customer apologies
• Three businesses and multiple channels are managed from one platform
• Much faster day-to-day working, with output that used to take a month now possible in a week
• New staff are productive quickly, from phone orders to handheld scanning and product creation
• Accurate goods-in and put-away, even at peak
• Reporting and stock reordering available on demand
• The freedom to work from anywhere, on any device

For Lorraine, the biggest payoff has been the time to build something new.

"When you're building your own brand, it takes time. Using StoreFeeder day to day has enabled me to do that. I couldn't have done it two years ago on the old system."