Reveel is at its best when we help other businesses achieve their goals and further their vision. That’s why helping businesses like Nisolo is so rewarding.
Nisolo is a brand of ethically made shoes and accessories, and its mission is to push the fashion industry toward sustainability. In an industry notorious for devaluing the makers and contributing to global pollution, Nisolo wants to do better.
The business started nine years ago when the founder, Patrick Woodyard, was in Peru doing post-graduate work. There in Trujillo, the handcrafted shoemaking capital of Peru, the idea for Nisolo was born.
Nisolo values the creator as much as the customer and pays a living wage to producers in their factories. Shipping also factors into their vision. To keep overhead low, Nisolo is an eCommerce company that ships directly to the consumer—making it even more critical to minimize shipping costs.
Partnering with Reveel
When Omari Whyte took over as director of operations at Nisolo, he inherited a partnership with another shipping intelligence business. Despite Nisolo’s high-volume growth over the last five years, they hadn’t seen any significant rate reduction. As an eCommerce business with tremendous growth, they needed to see their shipping costs come down.
Omari also felt he lacked shipping analytics and reporting that gave him insights into potential savings and the overall business.
Even though Omari had experience with contract negotiations in the past, he enlisted Reveel to streamline the process and provide the unique industry insight you can only get from us.
The Contract Negotiations
After working with both FedEx and UPS in 2019, Nisolo reached out to Reveel to help them decide between the two carriers and negotiate the best deal for 2020. This gave Nisolo an easy entry point into the negotiations.
One of the most significant benefits of working with Reveel, said Omari, is their competitive knowledge of the shipping industry. Throughout the negotiation process, the Reveel team provided insight into the shipping costs for a company of Nisolo’s size, helping Omari get fair rates.
“If you had no experience, you could negotiate with the best of them,” said Omari. “Having a third party that knows what other companies your size are paying in the marketplace is extremely helpful for negotiating.”
Even with Omari’s past experience with contract negotiations, he relied on the Reveel team to keep the discussion moving forward when other responsibilities took priority.
“I didn’t have to do much to keep it moving,” he said.
Omari also appreciated that the team provided summaries and a running scoreboard of the negotiations throughout the process. This gave him an at-a-glance view of the progression and enabled him to make fully informed decisions quickly.
With contract negotiations, Nisolo saved around 22% of their shipping costs—enabling them to reinvest in their business. With the money they saved on shipping, they could meet another one of their goals in 2020: to offset their carbon emissions.
Finding More Savings
Shortly after Nisolo and FedEx finalized negotiations, the Nisolo team noticed a problem. Through Reveel’s extensive dashboard, they found they weren’t seeing the savings they were expecting.
Omari reached out to the Reveel team, who quickly noticed a process error. This easy-to-fix error was quickly corrected, not just saving Nisolo money but also the time it would have taken to identify the problem.
“[This partnership] won’t add more hours to your day—it can actually take time away from it,” said Omari.
Omari also used the dashboard to quickly catch a discrepancy between a contract rate and what FedEx was charging. He went directly to FedEx to solve the issue but says he might not have noticed it without the help of the Reveel dashboard.
A Look Ahead
Nisolo continues to be a high-growth company, and as volume increases, they’ll need to work continuously to get the best rates.
Omari is looking forward to relying on Reveel to help as they grow outside of their earned discount tiers, continuing to benchmark their rates and optimize their shipping spend.
Reveel and Nisolo are looking forward to continuing their partnership.
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FedEx and UPS have announced their new rates for 2021. Have you figured out what your new shipping costs will be? Get the 2021 Shipping Rate Increase Guide now.
The Reveel App uses AI and machine learning to provide an unparalleled look into what’s impacting your bottom line. Through invoice audits, peer benchmarking, and rate modeling/simulations, you can see the health of your operation and assess pricing changes from parcel carriers like FedEx and UPS. Sign up for a free Reveel account today to see how you can leverage automation to synthesize your data, ship more for less, and reduce the time needed to identify issues and action items.
