Profile
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Industry: Waterproof Cycling Apparel
What they needed: A platform to optimize their supply chain and manage their growth
About Showers Pass
Based in Portland, Oregon Showers Pass is managed by a small team of outdoor enthusiasts who bike, run, hike climb and play in the outdoors. In 1997 Showers Pass was born from the desire to develop clothing and gear that would get people out on their bikes no matter the weather. They specialize in waterproof and breathable active apparel. Their products are used by pro cycling teams, mountain climbers, runners, cross-country skiers, bike commuters, mountain bikers, firefighters, endurance athletes and anyone who demands a high level of performance from their gear.
Optimizing the Supply Chain
When Kyle Ranson acquired Showers Pass, he knew the company had little enterprise IT infrastructure in place. Kyle came from a career in the high-tech sector where one of his areas of strength was supply chain management, and he was prepared for the challenge ahead.
“When we acquired Showers Pass there were no business processes at all,” said Kyle. “In fact, I noticed the supply chain in the apparel industry as a whole was in the dark ages, with a complete lack of visibility up and down the supply chain.
“I felt that optimizing the supply chain in this space would be a huge area of opportunity. If we could attain even a tenth of the efficiency that the high-tech industry had it would yield amazing results.
“AdvancePro has done a remarkable job of putting the right technical resources in place. It’s been a pleasure to do business with them. They have been remarkably responsive in delivering the tools we need to move our business forward.”
– Kyle Ranson,
CEO, Showers Pass
I was familiar with systems like SAP and Oracle to manage the back end of the business, so I knew what a system could do. But in order to make it affordable we needed a totally different set of expectations.”
Finding the Right Solution
Kyle found that, for small businesses, the solutions were limited. They were too simplistic with regards to inventory management, supply management, and international capabilities.
They were mostly designed for mom-and-pop stores with little multi-channel visibility.
“But, when I looked at AdvancePro, I was pleasantly shocked with its level of sophistication and its capabilities.” said Kyle. “It was really in a class of its own. A lot of its capabilities would stack up nicely against the enterprise class products and so I selected AdvancePro to be the foundation for growing our business. And the price met our budget, too. I was actually shocked at how low the cost was.”
Over the last decade Showers Pass has evolved substantially, but they continue to utilize AdvancePro as the foundation for everything they do. In the last couple of years, online and direct to consumer sales have accelerated at an unprecedented rate. Showers Pass’ ability to evolve from a B2B to a hybrid business model which combines both B2B and B2C was critical. Their business is now 30 percent B2C and growing rapidly. Said Kyle, “I am pleased to say that AdvancePro has been able to grow and adapt with us.”
“What was critical to us was the seamless integration of AdvancePro with QuickBooks and Shopify, ” said Kyle. “As our B2C business scaled up we could easily handle the growth. It was critical to us to have that integration.”
How AdvancePro is used at Showers Pass
When someone places an order on the Showers Pass website, it goes straight into AdvancePro for picking, packing and shipping, and the inventory count is updated in real-time across all channels. Once the order ships, AdvancePro communicates a tracking number back to the consumer. The consumer gets a complete end- to-end experience, and AdvancePro is the hub.
“Overall our business strategy is three pronged,” said Kyle. “We have independent dealers which are small organizations that purchase gear for a few thousand dollars a year. Then we have our major accounts, customers like REI, MEC and LL Bean, who tend to purchase via EDI. Those orders typically go out by the pallet. And then we have direct consumers with orders of one or two items. So having a system that’s capable of managing pallet-size orders and orders of a single unit simultaneously is imperative.
Working with AdvancePro
Kyle adds, “AdvancePro has done a remarkable job of putting the right technical resources in place. It’s been a pleasure to do business with them. They have been remarkably responsive in delivering the tools we need to move our business forward.”
“AdvancePro’s technical support is in a class of its own. When we need help we have never been left hanging. They’ve always responded in an unbelievably timely fashion. Obviously we go through upgrades and there are challenges from time to time but, overall, we don’t have downtime. That is a tremendous accolade to the AdvancePro team.”
AdvancePro is a Success at Showers Pass
“Over the last couple years our revenue has increased dramatically. Last year alone we grew over 30 percent; our consumer direct business grew at over 60 percent. The sheer volume of orders coming in is tremendous and growing rapidly. With AdvancePro we have been successful in handling a growing volume of orders without dramatically increasing the number of personnel. AdvancePro has really helped us keep costs in check. Growing too fast can be the death of a company because costs can quickly get out of hand. With AdvancePro we’ve been able to manage our costs very effectvely.”
“I would absolutely recommend AdvancePro to other organizations,” said Kyle, “With AdvancePro we have enterprise class capabilities at a very reasonable price. We have Integration across our IT stack and that came standard with AdvancePro.”
Kyle concludes, “What we were not expecting, but which has been a very important benefit, has been the engagement of AdvancePro’s senior management. They remember who we are, they know what our business does and they know what our goals and aspirations are. I look at any of the competitive products out there and, best case, we would have been just another name on a spreadsheet. So I would say the commitment of AdvancePro’s senior management was a most unexpected benefit. Put simply, these guys care.”
AdvancePro knows that each business is unique, with special challenges and needs. AdvancePro owners have been in the warehousing industry for over 20 years. Our team of business process experts work with you to fully understand your specific workflow and help you identify and remove bottlenecks. AdvancePro gives you the systems and tools to grow your business.
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