Case Study – Ultimate Electronics

Ultimate Electronics has a relatively small shipping department, so they relied heavily on Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) – especially for West Coast customers. But, when the pandemic hit Amazon suddenly halted their inventory shipments because they were considered non-essential. Not long after the virus outbreak, Ultimate Electronics experienced a surge in order volume. They went from shipping dozens of orders per day to over 1,000 orders per day. With limited shipping capabilities and their vital FBA channel choking, Shaul began to see that Ultimate Electronics’ revenue and reputation were on the line. Fortunately, Ultimate Electronics offered Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) for East Coast customers. But, without a nationwide presence, they were missing out on the huge spike in demand on the West Coast. With their small team and manual shipping software Ultimate Electronics was struggling to keep up with the 10X spike. Rate shopping across USPS, UPS and Amazon Logistics, and label generation became overwhelming. The team had to put in a lot of overtime to get everything picked, packed, and shipped. With overtime at an all-time high, and morale at an all-time low, Shaul saw that fulfilling orders this way was simply unsustainable. Moreover, this unprecedented increase required management to get deeply involved in the operations, taking them away from the critical work of expanding the business and managing customer relationships. Such a strain made it clear for Shaul that the only way to grow sustainably was to expand fulfillment capacity. After seeing Cahoot recommended in a trade group he frequents, Shaul decided to give it a try.