Ship-from-store lets omnichannel retailers fulfill online orders directly from shop stock instead of only from a central warehouse. Every store becomes a mini-fulfillment centre, so items that are sold out online can still ship from a nearby shop. It cuts lead times, shipping distance and lost sales.
Paul Smith turned stock sitting in 36 stores into online sales with ship-from-store, reaching a 95% sell-through rate over the Autumn–Winter (AW) peak season. Here's how the fashion house connected local inventory to online demand to clear stock with ship-from-store.
As Paul Smith expanded across the UK, continental Europe and North America, cracks appeared in the brand's tech system. Valuable inventory sat in 36 stores while online customers faced "out of stock" notices, even when items were available on nearby brick-and-mortar shelves.
Fragmented e-commerce and delivery systems couldn't talk to each other. Paul Smith's stores had the products, but their online platform couldn't access them. Finally, a patchwork of home-built solutions and outdated shipping tools created costly inefficiencies at every turn.
The tech stack disconnect led to missed sales, frustrated customers and revenue walking out the door.
Paul Smith implemented Ingrid In-store and transformed how they fulfill online orders. Using Centra's e-commerce platform, Ingrid's delivery integration, and Limesharp's development expertise, the brand now ships directly from their brick-and-mortar locations. The ship-from-store approach cuts lead times, reduces carbon emissions, lowers shipping costs, and optimizes inventory use, especially when products show as sold out online but remain available in stores.
Ingrid Checkout and Ingrid Transport automated booking rules, carrier filtering, post codes and product availability empower customers with the most price-efficient delivery options. Paul Smith can also A/B test the delivery offer all year round to strike the right balance between conversion and delivery revenue.
Ingrid Tracking drastically cut Paul Smith's 'Where is my order?' (WISMO) inquiries through proactive delivery updates. The seamless integration with Klaviyo ensures all notifications maintain Paul Smith's distinctive brand voice.
Customers can now make returns, direct exchanges and complaints through the automated Ingrid Returns self-service portal, helping Paul Smith accelerate item turnaround times and reduce operational costs.
Similar to fitting the brand with a new suit(e) for long-haul global travel, the re-platforming project enabled Paul Smith confidently step into the next era of retail.
The brand added more delivery options to match individual preferences, improved the overall customer experience, achieved a seasonal revenue boost from using brick-and-mortar stock for online order fulfillment, and significantly reduced the tech stack complexity, now with the lower cost of IT and infrastructure.
Following a 10% weekly revenue increase from the ship-from-store launch, Paul Smith started fulfilling 20% of online orders in-store and recorded a 28% Black Friday revenue growth with a 95% sell-through rate.
Now, Paul Smith is poised for further growth, with plans to introduce loyalty programs and next-day delivery options, all built on the foundation of a unified, flexible delivery platform provided by Ingrid.
Of online orders fulfilled from stores
Weekly revenue increase with in-store fulfillment
Revenue growth on Black Friday 2024
Sell-through during AW peak season
"Before Ingrid, we spent a lot of time managing carrier integrations and vendors, building the missing parts ourselves. Now we have all the tools needed to be self-reliant and quickly make the changes needed to meet customer expectations of a seamless shopping experience. On the internal side, we can put our resources into more proactive and productive tasks."
