ECD saved time and manual work with our solutions to synchronize their orders from WordPress to Zoho Creator and manage delivery dates there using a cloud based system.
Background
Background
East Coast Dogs (ECD) is an online retail company built to provide quality food for pet dogs in NSW. Their mission is to help educate people to learn what is best to feed your pet and the perfect way is to start with Raw & Fresh.
ECD takes orders online via subscription or one-off via their website. Every week, they calculate the quantity of ingredients needed to satisfy the next weeks orders, and order them in. They then make the orders, pack them, and deliver them to their customers.
Additionally, ECD has a special product range. On this range, when a customer places an order from their website, based on the product ordered, weight of dog, duration of order (1 week, 2 weeks, month), and number of dogs, the client will receive a number of packets with different products inside.
For example, if a client orders 1 week of beef essentials for a 10kg dog, they will receive 7x250grams of beef essentials in their order. If they order 2 weeks of half n half for 1 20kg dog, they will receive 7x500grams of chicken, and 7×500 of beef in their order, delivered once.
In some cases, the client would need to be delivered to more than once. It was also necessary to accommodate for subscription customers.
Challenges
Challenges
From an operational perspective, ECD staff were having to deal with too much manual steps for their orders to go out:
For each order that came in, ECD would have to copy the order details into Excel, and calculate the breakdown (i.e. how many packets of what meat type in what quantity to be delivered, and when).
This would then be manually added to another spreadsheet with that order number.
ECD had to manually calculate how much ingredients needed to be ordered the next week.
ECD staff had to manually tally the number of each different packets to be packaged on the delivery week
ECD had to write up packaging slips, print them, and add inside each order
ECD staff had to manage and keep track of which orders had to packaged for the week, and when they should be delivered
If any order was cancelled, that needed to be removed manually from the Excel spreadsheet
As the business grew, ECD management realised their current procedures wouldn’t grow with them, and would hold back their business from future growth. They decided they needed a proper Order Management System. ECD engaged Oscillosoft to build a proper order management system inside Zoho Creator, designed correctly from ground up, and with the potential to grow with the business.
Solution
Solution
Zoho Creator, Mobile Applications, API Integration
Zoho Creator was chosen as a development platform by Oscillosoft, due to it being low code but highly customisable, which allowed Oscillosoft to build a sustainable application at a low cost (roughly ⅓ the price of creating a similar application on another platform).
Integration was done between WordPress and Zoho Creator – all new and updated orders were synchronised across from WordPress to Zoho Creator.
In Zoho Creator, orders from WordPress were broken down based on the formulas received from ECD.
A job breakdown page was created, which showed all the upcoming orders, along with what ECD needed to deliver for that order (based on the breakdown).
Delivery dates were managed for the orders from Zoho Creator, based on the order dates.
Total ingredients needed for any week were calculated and displayed in Zoho Creator, saving ECD from having to calculate this manually weekly.
The application was cloud based, available anywhere, including mobile apps on iOS and Android. This allowed ECD to quickly view the current orders while on the go.
Results
Results
Every week, staff would just go and order in ingredients based on what was displayed from Zoho Creator.
They would then make the orders based on the totals displayed for each product type in Zoho Creator.
Next, they could pack each order based on the information displayed in the “Job Breakdown” page.
Finally, they could pack all the orders with a print of a “Order details” page, with the customer address and order number.
Instead of the many many steps required before over the whole week in Excel, now they could manage with just a few clicks in Zoho Creator.
ECD staff and management were very happy and satisfied with the solution provided by Oscillosoft. It saved them tons of time and manual work, leaving staff to work on other aspects of the business.