Claret Showroom

Founded by Alex Lyles and Claire Spencer-Churchill in 2006, Claret Showroom provides contemporary womenswear brands with all the necessary tools to expand their distribution and wholesale channels internationally. Noticing a gap in the market, the pair also created Europe’s leading resort wear tradeshow, Splash Paris in 2016.

After opening showrooms in London, Paris and New York, not only did their roster of brands and designers grow, so did the amount of data that had to be managed. What used to be a manual task of constantly updating spreadsheets is no longer, thanks to being able to upload all the collections through a simple import. “Our brands send us an excel document with the names, codes, colours and prices that we can just add onto a template and upload from CSV into Zedonk. We can make any bulk amendments; it saves us so much time and is much easier.”

Selling season can be pretty hectic, so, anything that can simplify and speed up order taking is a bonus. And being able to search multiple collections and add products to an order, along with multiple sizes, has never been easier. “When you’re raising an order, you can type all the styles in one go and at once, you can put the sizes. It’s a lot quicker, definitely from a time point of view, it helps because we’re so busy during the sales campaign.”

Not only has it been important to manage all the collections and orders in one place, but also to have somewhere to store customer information, whether it be their contact details, payment terms or delivery addresses. “We use and update the customer database all the time, we use it as a reference point when we’re getting on the phone to book stores in for appointments.”

Automating these processes has meant there is no need for any more handwritten orders or paperwork. As soon as an order has been placed, any documents needed for the customer can be generated straight away. “The order confirmations are clean and highlights important information, our customers are so used to seeing them. Having the option of export or duty invoices is good, rather than just a domestic because it can look quite messy. We’ve never had any problems with the invoices when exporting.”

Over the years, as the business model changed to a distributor from a wholesale agency, a platform that allowed the sales and logistics teams to work in cohesion was needed. “As Claret Showroom, we use different areas of Zedonk, and can all login easily. There are lots of different aspects of the system that are good for each of our departments. It caters to both our sales and logistics teams.”

For the logistics team, booking goods in, managing stock levels and seeing what is available to be shipped is now a much faster process. “We use the allocation module all the time, it’s super easy and really good to use. It’s quick and cuts about an hour of our time. As soon as stock arrives, we prepare pick and pack lists and delivery notes to send to the warehouse. It’s picked straight away and either goes out to stores or we wait for payment. It’s streamlined and simple.”

With the introduction of new features and modules, having someone on hand to help with the set-up process means mistakes can be avoided early on. “Having a tutorial with a new implementation is really helpful and everyone can listen in. It has been great to have that while we were learning, the support team couldn’t do enough.”

At the end of the season, when all the orders have been entered, reports can be generated to begin planning for the months ahead. “The sales team like to be up-to-date with who has paid, and the deposit report is great to pull off because they can chase who hasn’t. It’s good to see the delivery windows and make sure everything is correct and inline. It helps create a delivery schedule for the year, so, reporting is fab.”

From analysing the order book, the team can keep an eye on sales figures and quickly report on which pieces performed well each season, and which didn’t. “It’s good to pull off a list of style breakdown, how many units of a particular style was ordered and who ordered it. We can see any bestsellers that we can then report to the brand.”

Having access to real-time data, along with customisable views, has eliminated the need to go back and forth between screens. “You can tailor the screen to the filters needed and it saves so much time. Pulling off orders into CSV and Excel files is easier to see invoice totals and delivery destinations. Everything is in one place and you can get your data so much easier.”

By using one system to manage their operations and everyone working in sync, the need for departments to be working in multiple sheets is gone completely. “Everything is done through Zedonk, we don’t have any issues with anyone asking for anything extra. We need it to raise orders for the brands, otherwise, we’d have to do it manually, it would be hell.”