From 112% Order Growth to 99.99%+ Fulfillment Rate: The WOW-ing Transformation of WOW Skin Science with Unicommerce
What WOW Skin Science Achieved Using Unicommerce?
99.99%+ Order Fulfillment Rate
112% Order Growth Rate in 7 Months
Maintained Average O2S Time of 26.8 hours
141% Increase in Catalog Size
Over 8 Lakh Live Inventory Count
About the Company
WOW Skin Science is a luxury bath and body brand that started in 2016, offering a wide range of high-quality products for the skin. The brand is inspired by the belief that the body deserves as much tender loving care as the face, and therefore, they have created a wide range of products, including body scrubs, bath & shower gels, body butter, body polishes, bath salts, and moisturizers.
As the parent company of Body Cupid, Nature Derma, and Wow Health, this brand is committed to delivering exceptional personal care products to its customers. They strive to provide a customer-first experience, including faster deliveries and better post-purchase support.
To achieve this, they needed more functionality and integrations for their B2C and D2C businesses. However, their previous technology provider was not able to provide these critical capabilities. That’s where Unicommerce came in, offering a comprehensive software solution that optimized operations and customer service.
Challenges Faced by WOW Skin Science
- Balancing Multiple Brands Across Different Marketplaces – WOW Skin Science faced the challenge of managing multiple brands (Body Cupid, Nature Derma, and Wow Health) across various marketplaces and carts, including popular ones like Shopify, Meesho, and Myntra, as well as their own custom website integrations. Additionally, as the parent company of popular personal care brands, WOW Skin Science had to ensure that the products were listed correctly across all marketplaces. This meant maintaining consistent pricing and accurately managing inventory levels for each brand.
- Balancing Client Satisfaction with Unfulfillable Orders – With a large customer base and an extensive range of products, WOW Skin Science faced the challenge of handling unfulfillable orders due to stockouts at their warehouses. The company understands the importance of keeping its customers happy, and canceling orders can lead to negative customer experiences, which could harm the company’s reputation.
- Fraudulent Returns Leading to Financial Losses – Another challenge faced by WOW Skin Science is the fraudulent use of their Buy One Get One (BOGO) scheme in Cash on Delivery (COD) orders. Sometimes, the stock is located in different facilities, and fulfilling orders from multiple locations ensures that customers receive their products as quickly as possible rather than waiting for all the stock to be in a single location.
To ensure faster delivery and higher customer experience, they started splitting orders into multiple deliveries, even at the cost of increased logistics and transportation expenses per order. However, sometimes the free product reaches the customer before the paid product (BOGO), which is when some customers take advantage of the situation and engage in fraudulent returns. This led to a loss in revenue and increased operational costs for WOW Skin Science.
- GST Overpayments Weighing Down on Company’s Profit Margins – The challenge that WOW Skin Science faced with GST overpayments is another example of how seemingly small issues can lead to significant financial losses. This issue arose due to the incorrect charging of GST on the MRP of both the products included in the BOGO scheme, even though only one product was sold while the other one was a promotional gift. This resulted in an unnecessary tax burden on the company and affected its profit margins.
Solutions Offered to WOW Skin Science
- Customized API Solution – With a large customer base and multiple brands to manage, the company faced the challenge of managing inventory and fulfilling orders on time. To overcome this challenge, Unicommerce offered a customized API solution integrated with Odoo, a US-based ERP software.
The customized e-commerce integration allowed Odoo to consume Unicommerce’s API, pulling inventory data on a daily basis. Whenever the inventory levels fell below a certain threshold, Odoo would automatically generate a purchase order, which is then processed by WOW Skin Science.
Once approved, the goods were received through GRN and added to the stock, ensuring inventory levels were always optimal, avoiding stockouts and overstocking. This created a positive impact on the customer experience by guaranteeing products are always available and orders can be fulfilled promptly. - Virtual Warehouse for Resolving Unfulfillable Orders – WOW Skin Science faced a dilemma – they wanted to accept all orders that came their way but struggled to fulfill them when inventory was unavailable. The brand knew that declining orders would hurt customer satisfaction and sales. They needed a solution, and that’s when they turned to Unicommerce and created a virtual warehouse for unfulfillable orders.
This buffer zone enabled WOW Skin Science to efficiently manage the influx of orders, even when inventory was unavailable. With the help of Uniware, the brand implemented a new script that ran every four hours and automatically sent unfulfillable orders to facilities with the available inventory. This ensured that orders were always rerouted to the best possible location for timely fulfillment.
- Eliminating GST Overpayments on BOGO Products – GST overpayments can be a major financial burden for any company, and WOW Skin Science was no exception. Their BOGO scheme led to an unexpected challenge when they charged GST on the MRP of both products, even though one had zero value. This issue had a significant impact on the company’s profit margins, and it became essential to find a solution.
Unicommerce rose to the challenge and created a customized invoice that charged GST on only one of the products – the one with an MRP – while excluding the one with zero MRP. This helped to eliminate overpayments but also reduced the tax burden on the company.
- Combating Fraudulent Returns – Unicommerce came up with a creative solution to tackle the challenge of fraudulent returns causing financial losses to WOW Skin Science. By enabling the brand to generate invoices that divided the total amount of the BOGO scheme by the number of products, Unicommerce ensured that wardrobing would not go unnoticed.
In simpler terms, if the BOGO offer was for two products priced at Rs. 2,000 each, the total invoice amount would be Rs. 2,000 (BOGO). Divining Rs. 2,000 by two would result in Rs. 1,000 to be paid for each product. However, the invoice was created with zero value for the second product, which would act as a deterrent to wardrobing.
By requiring customers to pay for both products, even if they receive the free product first, the company can still generate revenue and minimize losses in the event of partial cancellation or return. This approach not only helped WOW Skin Science in covering the cost of the free product but also ensured that the company didn’t end up losing money on shipping and handling expenses.
Our partnership with Unicommerce has been nothing short of a game-changer, thanks to their innovative API solutions and virtual warehouse capabilities that have enabled us to conquer the toughest challenges. At WOW Skin Science, we believe in pushing the envelope and delivering the best, and with Unicommerce, we’re confident that we’ll continue to exceed expectations and raise the bar.
Impact on the Business
After joining forces with Unicommerce, WOW Skin Science has soared to new heights of success, achieving an order fulfillment rate that would make even the most ambitious entrepreneur swoon. Their sales channels have expanded tenfold, thanks to the robust inventory management system provided by Unicommerce.
With over 8 lakh products in live inventory, WOW Skin Science has achieved an awe-inspiring order growth rate of 112% in just seven months. However, the real magic lies in Unicommerce’s simple yet powerful tech infrastructure.
With it, WOW Skin Science increased its catalog size by 141% and handled a live catalog count of 2K+ products. This has led to remarkable improvements in operational metrics, with an average order-to-ship time of just 26.8 hours over the 7-month period.
Unicommerce has provided WOW Skin Science with solutions like customized API, a virtual warehouse for unfulfillable orders, and even eliminated GST overpayments. With such incredible support, the company has been able to combat fraudulent returns and streamline its operations, leading to unprecedented growth and an ever-expanding customer base.