Partner Article

Hull City Tigers online shop scores with NetDespatch

Hull City Tigers online shop scores with Retail & Sports Systems and NetDespatch

Online sports retailer implements new technology to concentrate on growing its business and tailoring the customer experience

Marlow, 23rd September 2015 – Hull City Tigers online shop http://www.tigerleisure.com has seen an instant 50% reduction in despatch time after implementing a streamlined IT solution from partners Retail & Sports Systems and NetDespatch for its Royal Mail shipments.

The sole distributor of Championship football club Hull City Tigers official merchandise now has a seamlessly integrated solution for all their online orders, allowing them to print the correct 2D barcoded Royal Mail shipping labels and manifests, send emails to their customers, as well as automatically sending electronic pre-advice data to Royal Mail.

Prior to integrating the Retail & Sports Systems and NetDespatch system in January, Hull City Tigers staff, who ship hundreds of items a month, were manually processing orders from their web site, re-entering address information and then matching the labels to order numbers, as well as sending out emails manually. This process was open to human error, and was also time consuming which was preventing the company taking more specialised orders and progressing its own website.

Sarah Crawford, Online and Retail Administration Manager at Hull City Tigers comments: “Before we used the Retail & Sports Systems and NetDespatch integration, the order fulfilment process was manual –making sure all the tracking numbers were typed out correctly, along with passing on all the parcels to another colleague to be franked. During busy times, we would be receiving calls from customers about their purchases before we were able to send out emails regarding their orders, and the whole process was very time consuming and open to human error.

“With the new platform, we can pick and pack orders and print labels straight away, making the order fulfilment process seamless. We no longer have to use another colleague to frank the parcels, and we are now saving 50% of our time – time that can be utilised to develop our own website, and look after any special orders; such as personalising Hull City Tigers kit and tailoring special messages for gifts. We are really impressed with the difference the platform has made, as we can also now track our orders and billing, and analyse how well our ecommerce site is performing. Our only regret is that we should have made the move sooner!”

Richard Waltham, Retail and Sports Systems Director, comments “The web-based NetDespatch platform has automated what was previously a very labour intensive process for us and our customers. Before, if we had any issues or changes to a particular order, it was a very manual discovery process to find the problem and fix it. Now, we simply pull a file from the server, send it to NetDespatch and we have our answer in minutes. All in all, we are now able to offer our customers a faster, more reliable service that’s easy to support.”

NetDespatch works with all leading ecommerce systems to enable them to seamlessly integrate with postal and parcel carriers. The integration allows them to increase their customer offering by automating the connection between order processing, despatch and delivery, even if the orders are received in one location and despatched from another. There are no costs involved for the retailer or the ecommerce partner for installation, training or support, and the system is available instantly online.

Ends

About Hull City Tigers: Hull City was founded in 1904. The club currently participates in The Championship, the second tier of English football. In 2007–08 it achieved promotion to the top flight of English football for the first time in its history, by winning the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Their highest league finish was for the 2013–14 season, in which it finished 16th in the Premier League table. Hull City Tigers’ website is the official and only distributor of the club’s merchandise, and offers a wide range of Hull City products, from club kit to sports equipment. For more information visit http://www.tigerleisure.com/.

About NetDespatch:

NetDespatch is the leading SaaS parcel data management platform for postal and parcel carriers worldwide. Recognised as one of the top independent Cloud Computing providers in the UK, the platform currently enables carriers to provide more than 130,000 of their business customers with solutions to seamlessly integrate ecommerce websites, sales order processing and warehouse systems at point of despatch. Users can print the correct shipping labels, customs documentation and manifests, and automatically pre-advise their carrier of incoming parcels. For more information visit www.netdespatch.com or follow NetDespatch on Twitter @NetDespatch

About Retail and Sports Systems:

Retail and Sports Systems was founded in 2009, with the first live system being installed at Sheffield United in July 2010, followed by St. Helens RLFC in August 2010. Today, the Retail & Sports Systems system is in use at 20 sites, including 11 football clubs & 3 rugby clubs. Current customers posting are: Campo Sports, Score Draw, Just Keepers, Hull FC, Middlesborough FC, Swansea City and Fulham FC. For more information visit www.retailsportssystems.co.uk.

Media Contact:

Michael Bartley

C8 Consulting

+44 (0)118 9 497750

michael@c8consulting.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Becky Clark .