How Merchgirls supercharged business growth by 300% during the pandemic

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Established in 2015 by Hannah Chipkin and Pippa Joseph, Merchgirls quickly became the go-to merch solution for companies that wanted something different to the traditional merchandise offering. Merchgirls is a creative agency, focusing on creating merchandise that’s twice as nice for the broader market. 

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To meet the growing needs of its clients during Covid, Merchgirls created a custom pick and pack process that elevated the offering from B2B to B2C on a mass scale. During this time, Merchgirls defaulted to manually fulfilling orders, requiring in-house staff to manage their bookings individually via phone and email with carriers.

“Before joining Shippit, we were using a very clunky system,” says Pippa Joseph, Director at Merchgirls.

Reduce costs with fulfilment optimisation

Shippit was the company’s first-ever platform for national freight, replacing the dated, manual process of fulfilling orders over the phone, including updating addresses manually and processing payments over the phone. For Merchgirls, the Shippit platform helped reduce time spent fulfilling orders by 50 per cent, enabling it to scale its business and focus on other priority areas like product development. 

Sustainable shipping and delivery options

Merchgirls goes beyond saying no to single-use plastic packaging. With its eyes firmly set on becoming a certified B Corp, adopting an environmentally-friendly delivery platform like Shippit’s carbon neutral delivery services, where 100 per cent of carbon emissions are offset at no extra cost, became integral to meet its customer’s sustainable delivery expectations.

An improved post-purchase experience with tracking visibility and customised branding

Shippit’s seamless tracking and customised branding capabilities helped track a large volume of orders, all in one place. It eliminated the need to switch between different carrier websites. Instead, the team could access all the tracking data to stay on top of deliveries. As a result, this led to an improved customer experience and retention by giving customers peace of mind with consistent delivery experiences. Tracking notifications and customised branding allow Merchgirls’ clients, namely Telstra Purple, to own their delivery experience at every touchpoint.

Immense cost saving with smart carrier allocation

Finding the best rates often requires manually searching and negotiating between different carriers. But with Shippit’s community of merchants and partnerships with Australia’s leading carriers, Merchgirls gained access to exclusive and competitive shipping rates, across Standard, Express, Same day and On-demand delivery. Merchgirls reduced shipping costs by 25 per cent with Shippit’s smart carrier allocation technology. The team can automatically select the cheapest or fastest carrier for every order while offering multiple delivery options at checkout to reduce delivery time by 15 per cent for every booking.

What were the results?

Opening up a new arm of the business

Joining Shippit opened a completely new arm of the business for Merchgirls. Previously, operating on a prominently B2B basis shipping directly to its clients, Shippit enabled direct to customer delivery, substantially increasing Merchgirls’ B2C business offering and capabilities. As a result, Merchgirls saw an exponential increase in both return business and conversion rate, increasing by 90 per cent and 300 per cent, respectively. 

Expert shipping services for clients of all sizes

Equipped with a new arm of the business, Merchgirls worked with Shippit’s experts to integrate, manage and maintain carrier APIs to offer a bespoke Shippit account for each client. Built to be more reliable than Courier API’s, Shippit handles millions of requests weekly with best-in-class SLAs. From 100 weekly parcels, on average, to over 5000, Merchgirls’ partnership with Shippit has supercharged overall business growth by 80 per cent leading to better customer retention and loyalty.

Learn more about how Shippit can support your business, talk to our experts today!