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~ Descartes Peoplevox ~

The question of how stand out in the over-saturated market of online fashion has never been
more relevant. A typical approach would be to look at the pre-purchase experience: ad campaigns,
marketing spend, how your website looks, the product images, who can get the most high-profile
influencer on board, etc. Yet, by speaking with the founders and operational leaders of these
types of brands, it has validated our view that it is, in fact, the post-purchase experience that

companies need to be focussing their time on. This ensures that rather than haemorrhaging cash
while constantly searching for new customers, companies can instead delight their more loyal
base of existing shoppers with a fantastic fulfilment experience.

he following article presents three founders roles, from design, marketing, everyone including the
or operational leaders, who have shared their bosses were in the warehouse, chipping in and packing
Ttake on boosting marketing spend, growing orders. There was no way we could scale like that.”
sales numbers, and how fulfilment and logistics are A move to a vast new distribution centre, coupled with the
the crucial pieces of the puzzle. implementation of various back-end systems including a
WMS, have allowed Damien to get Meshki ahead of the
Upscaling rapidly to meet booming demand demand curve, rather than fighting a huge uphill battle
Over in Sydney, Australia, Meshki is a women’s fashion every time that volume pressure comes along from excellent
and lifestyle brand in hypergrowth mode, which has marketing and an in-demand product.
scaled by over 500% in the past three years. At the helm
from an operational perspective is Damien Park-Neilson. “Once we had what we needed to execute, it all flew. We
From the first few weeks of his role up to now, the major needed to up our inventory holding by 500% to hit our
challenges have always been bringing efficiency and process numbers for the next five years, and we were wasting so
improvement to an extreme ‘creative chaos’ environment, much time on replenishment – it was a no-brainer to move
“WE’VE MADE A LOAD
led by ambitious and into a much bigger space
visionary founders. and set ourselves up with
a real platform for future
OF MISTAKES ALONG
“Right now, when there growth. We’re really in the
are so many kinks in your volume game: we don’t do
supply chain, it’s kinda like wholesale, it’s all direct
being a firefighter...to deliver THE WAY, BUT IT’S to consumer, so having
that seamless customer more SKUs and more pick
experience, you have to align ALL ABOUT LEARNING faces just makes sense.
everything end to end from We’ve now got eight pack
your suppliers, your freight- stations; each could do
forwarders, all the way to FROM THEM.” 1,000 orders a day. So
the returns management. It’s with everything manned,
a communal effort trying we can pump out 8,000
to stay aligned across the departments, as it’s always the orders a day. And the beautiful thing is: adding more pack
supply chain that is going to get hit when the team has a stations is easy.”
great idea that they decide to just execute straight away.
We’ve made a load of mistakes along the way, but it’s all Lifetime Value, driven by exceptional fulfilment
about learning from them. We’re a lot better at looking Paul Waddy, who is now CEO of The Horse, faced similar
at the data now, and a massive part of my role has been challenges as Operations Director for another shining
implementing the right systems and processes alongside Australian star in the online fashion industry, Showpo. For
that to make better decisions and streamline everything. him, not only was the brand growing faster and faster with
ever-increasing order volumes (and with a social media
Before that, we really were busting out of the seams: backlash to boot after some problem orders). Moreover,
a typical Monday could have been 200 orders, but on Paul knew that exceptional fulfilment could itself be used
the first Black Friday (my second month at Meshki), I as a growth driver for the business when executed correctly.
remember coming in, and there were 8,000 orders in the
backlog. We were trying to make the projections based on “If you’ve got flexibility across your staff, a great team, a
our average speeds at the time, and it was coming back WMS that is agile and can handle it, and great freight
with two weeks! We had to pull all the staff out of their partners, that’s a powerful combination that will allow

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