Cox & Cox Mailorder: Black box function for seamless integration
The Challenge
Established in 2001, Cox & Cox are a catalogue company who have seen their circulation rate significantly increase in the past two years. They saw the financial benefit of using a multi carrier solution, but the previous despatch process completely relied on a manual operation. The orders would be received via their web front end and the office staff would assign to the relevant carrier by weight through the company intranet site. If the warehouse didn’t agree with the selection, then they would change it accordingly. Operating this way was very time consuming and labour intensive, impacting on resources and was open to human error. They weren’t weighing the goods, so it wasn’t always guaranteed that they went out on the correct service, potentially incurring unnecessary additional costs. With the company continuing to grow at such an aggressive rate, they needed to look at systems that were resilient and scalable.
The Solution
Moneyspyder, a state of the art ecommerce solutions provider and an integrated partner of MetaPack, were enlisted to re-build their web front end and order management system (OMS) in order for it to handle the company’s continuing growth. Moneyspyder recommended MetaPack as a delivery management solution which would compliment the new web front end and order management as well as streamline the despatch process within Cox & Cox. The new process enables Cox & Cox to use MetaPack as a ‘black box’ function. This means they are enjoying the intelligence provided by MetaPack, whilst still using the user screens provided Moneyspyder. Orders are automatically sent via an API (Application Program Interface) to MetaPack via the OMS and allocated to the correct carrier without any manual intervention. This removes the opportunity for human error and allows them to use their time and resources more efficiently. The introduction of MetaPack has received positive feedback throughout the organisation. This is another example of a successful co-operation with a partner system that provides both the delivery of a robust and flexibly lean operation via the MetaPack carrier integration and the user friendly front end of Moneyspyder’s OMS. Cox & Cox’s end to end order data and operational process is now transparent and manageable.
"As Cox & Cox continues to grow, we needed our IT systems to reflect that. Installing MetaPack has meant we’re now able to allocate deliveries automatically, eliminating any manual allocation. This has reduced any opportunity for human error and has allowed us to concentrate our resources in dealing with our additional volumes."
Rod Taylor, Director
