Lakeland Flytying: Time-saving and Scalable

After winning his first sea fishing competition at the age of seven, Nigel Thompson became hooked on Fly Fishing. Continuing with his passion, he decided to concentrate on producing his own flies and Lakeland Flytying was established nine years ago. It started off as a mail order company, promoted through specialist magazines and shows. After a year, the company moved into internet sales to capture a larger market. Over the past eight years Lakeland Flytying has experienced rapid growth and needed a solution that would deal with their growing volumes.

The Challenge

In order to process a delivery, the address would have to be typed into the database, the invoices and labels would be completed manually and at the end of each day the goods were taken to the Post Office for shipping. With sales increasing at an aggressive rate, the despatch method needed to be re-evaluated. It was having an impact on resources: it could take up to a full working day to process 20 orders. This didn’t allow enough time to concentrate on other important aspects of the business.

The Solution

Lakeland Flytying approached Citrus-Lime after meeting them at an exhibition. Citrus-Lime is a retail specialist providing integrated epos and ecommerce systems. Since implementing the Citrus-Lime solution, Lakeland Flytying had increased their output between 75-100%. As part of the solution to Nigel’s despatch problems Citrus-Lime introduced Lakeland Flytying to MetaPack, a fully integrated part of the Citrus-Lime solution. With both systems in place the order management information is now passed seamlessly through to MetaPack, saving the man hours previously required in completing all the necessary paperwork. Goods are automatically allocated to the relevant carrier based on rules configured into the MetaPack database. The labels are then produced automatically, removing any manual intervention. The time saved has allowed Lakeland Flytying to focus on the other areas of the business. MetaPack have become an integral part of the Citrus-Lime solution offering. The end- to-end availability of full fulfilment functionality has put Citrus-Lime in the position of being able to offer value in Order Management Solutions as a result of integration into the MetaPack Delivery Management Software.

"I’ve been very pleased with the MetaPack product. The time it has saved us on a day-to-day basis has been incredible. We can now process our orders in no time and get on with all the other important things needed to run a business.”

Nigel Thompson, Proprietor

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