A favorable customer experience is an invaluable competitive advantage for a brand as it can foster increased customer loyalty, encourage repeat purchases, generate positive word-of-mouth referrals and contribute to the cultivation of a strong brand reputation. In some cases, the unboxing experience for a customer can be the deciding factor between a one-time purchase and a repeat customer. Laundry Sauce, with their keen attention to detail, understood the necessity of finding a third-party logistics (3PL) solutions provider that could support their vision of providing a memorable experience for each customer.
In today's retail environment, with elevated customer demands, brands are shifting their focus to ecommerce fulfillment to enhance the customer journey and fulfill their brand promises. The right 3PL solutions provider can help unlock additional value for ecommerce merchants by delivering their brand experience, how they promised, with every order.
Through their relationship with Cart.com, a national third-party logistics (3PL) provider, Laundry Sauce implemented a multi-node fulfillment strategy. This approach allowed them to maintain their brand experience for a rapidly expanding customer base while also reducing transit times and increasing brand profitability.
The world’s best smelling laundry detergent
Laundry Sauce, established in 2021 by Ian and Austin Blair along with Robert Cardiff, is not your ordinary laundry brand. In a market dominated by conventional scents, Laundry Sauce dared to be different. With a mission to go beyond the mundane, Laundry Sauce introduced fragrances like Australian Sandalwood, Egyptian Rose, Siberian Pine, French Saffron and Indonesian Patchouli into the rather dull marketplace. Their product line boasts laundry detergent pods, dryer sheets, scent boosters, fabric softeners and dryer balls – all infused with that distinctive Laundry Sauce fragrance twist.
The ultra-concentrated formula and long-lasting fragrances created by Laundry Sauce have captured the noses (and hearts) of customers worldwide.
Scalability: Big brand aspirations
With exposure in popular publications like Barstool Sports, Inc.com, Men’s Journal and Maxim, the brand quickly experienced rapid growth. Laundry Sauce’s journey from a startup with hundreds of orders a month in 2021 to a thriving enterprise, handling thousands of orders a month, in noticeably short fashion, came with its own set of challenges.
With that growth, it became evident that their existing 3PL provider, a small, regionally focused 3PL, would be unable to scale alongside the brand. Laundry Sauce needed a solutions provider that could not only meet their current fulfillment needs but one that would be able to manage their future growth aspirations.
Early in their search for a new 3PL, Laundry Sauce was introduced to Cart.com’s offering through word of mouth; another happy Cart.com brand. The brand spoke highly of Cart.com, their fulfillment expertise and their ability to scale.
Multiple nodes, one experience
After a lengthy collaboration with the Cart.com team, it became apparent that Laundry Sauce had found the 3PL relationship they had been searching for. It was a combination of their entrepreneur mindset, Cart.com's people, a robust fulfillment network, carrier relationships, proprietary technology and scalability that signaled to Laundry Sauce they were selecting the right fulfillment solutions provider this time around.
After reviewing the brand’s customer base, order history and shipping costs, the Cart.com team presented a multi-node fulfillment strategy to best serve the brand and its customers. Given the location of their customers, the brand strategically positioned itself in Cart.com’s Ohio and Utah fulfillment centers. This dual-node approach allows Laundry Sauce to reach its expanding customer base quickly and cost-effectively. With the speed, agility and scalability needed to grow, the brand can continue to ensure flawless order fulfillment and rapid delivery, with every order.
Throughout the onboarding process, Cart.com’s commitment to Laundry Sauce’s organizational success was second to none. Austin Blair explains, “Cart.com’s proactiveness, organization structure and human interaction is a true differentiator among competitors in the industry. It’s rare to find an external solutions provider that feels like internal staff, the Cart.com team is truly vested in our brand success.”
Easy integration with Shopify
Much like many other direct-to-consumer brands, Laundry Sauce employs the Shopify storefront for their online ecommerce sales. To ensure a smooth transition from their existing 3PL, the brand actively sought a Warehouse Management System (WMS) and Order Management System (OMS) solution that could effortlessly integrate with their Shopify platform.
The native, plug-and-play Shopify integration into the Cart.com WMS/OMS was pivotal in getting their operations up and running quickly to avoid shipping disruption. “Merchants using Shopify benefit from the out of the box integration with our WMS/OMS,” says Lars Anderson, Vice President of Fulfillment at Cart.com. “Our team provided hands-on support during the onboarding process, managing all technical workstreams and integrations as well as all operational workstreams.”
Apart from offering a user-friendly interface, Cart.com’s ecommerce technology empowers Laundry Sauce with real-time reporting, comprehensive inventory and order management, and AI-driven predictive analytics, enabling them to efficiently oversee warehouse operations without ever needing to set foot in the physical warehouse.
Smooth, human, operations
Laundry Sauce’s collaboration with Cart.com goes beyond just streamlined order fulfillment; it is rooted in strong personal relationships with the internal team members, setting a remarkable tone for the brand. At the heart of this relationship is Ashley Ritter, Cart.com’s dedicated liaison. She serves as the human bridge between Laundry Sauce and Cart.com’s operations and IT teams, skillfully facilitating communication among warehouse staff, operational managers and Cart.com executives. These human connections are pivotal in guaranteeing precision in the fulfillment processes with swift, initiative-taking responses to issues or concerns.
As Austin Blair emphasizes, “Cart.com understands the problem, comes up with a solution, and then
implements it.”
The mantra “Smell Good. Look Good. Feel Good.” adorns every customer’s box, and it is essential that the product, unboxing experience and fulfillment align with this ethos. Cart.com’s fulfillment solutions play a pivotal role in safeguarding the integrity of Laundry Sauce’s premium products, guaranteeing their timely delivery in the condition promised. With the Cart.com team’s swift responsiveness and proactiveness, Laundry Sauce has complete confidence they can deliver their brand experience, the way they want, with every order.
More channels, no problem
Looking to the future, Laundry Sauce envisions broadening its reach with new sales and distribution channels, encompassing both the retail and wholesale sectors. Through the collaboration with Cart.com, their proven expertise in B2B fulfillment, their established retail relationships, out of the box integration into thousands of sales channels, and their extensive network of 14 fulfillment centers spanning over 8 million square feet nationwide, Laundry Sauce is poised to confidently pursue its ambitious expansion plans.
In relationship with Cart.com, Laundry Sauce continues to rise above the ordinary and redefine the laundry fragrance industry. The relationship has enabled Laundry Sauce to focus on what they do best – driving sales and marketing – while entrusting their order fulfillment operations to the experts.
“We need to focus on things that will continue to drive sales; we don’t want to have to focus on fulfillment issues. You guys can handle all that,” as Austin Blair, co-founder of Laundry Sauce, explains.
The next chapter for Laundry Sauce is still to come, but their mission is simple: to be the world’s best-smelling laundry detergent. With Cart.com’s efficient, organized and scalable fulfillment solutions, Laundry Sauce is in an excellent position to tackle whatever fulfillment challenges may come their way while pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for the brand.
