Formerly known as Candy.com, Green Rabbit started out as an online candy store with the goal of delivering high-quality sweet treats to their customers. However, their business quickly took off and transitioned to the B2B space, providing candy, and soon other “breakroom staples,” to brick-and-mortar businesses around the country. “We kept morphing and evolving,” said Gary Cifatte, CTO at Green Rabbit. “We moved into fresh products and then into refrigerated and frozen products.”
Coast to Coast Scalability
With all these changes, Green Rabbit knew that their manual inventory processes could not possibly support their rapidly growing business. In 2014, Green Rabbit trusted NetSuite and RF-SMART to handle their receiving, replenishments, and put away in their four warehouse locations in the eastern, central, and western regions of the United States.
Having multiple locations placed strategically across the country is vital to their operations, as shipping refrigerated products requires thermal packaging that is only guaranteed to last for 48 hours. It’s even more critical that those warehouses are unified in one system to maximize the shelf-life of perishable products. “We are using RF-SMART in all locations,” said Gary. “We have 85-90% coverage for shipping in two days or less domestically.”
Choosing the Fast & Efficient Solution
As the need for quick and efficient shipping became a bigger focus, their previous third-party shipping system was unable to live up to their business’ needs. When it came to evaluating their shipping processes, trusting RF-SMART, their inventory partner of nearly a decade, just made sense. “I wanted to streamline everything down to as few moving parts and components as possible,” said Gary. “The reason I wanted to replace our previous solution was three-fold: First, I wanted to reduce the number of systems I had. Second, it was not customizable or robust. Third, we had repeated errors with the stations and shipments.”
With the goals to reduce systems and increase the output from the operations side, Gary and his team were excited to take advantage of features in RF-SMART Shipping that their previous solution lacked. As they implemented RF-SMART Shipping, they focused on migrating their larger, more complex orders over first.
These larger orders, which were previously very tedious and needed detailed instructions for packing and shipping, are now being completed in less than half the time it took with their previous solution. “We had a couple of major customers, and our previous shipping solution did not have the automation we needed, so packing and shipping their orders were very manual. We worked with RF-SMART to move these two customers to RF-SMART Shipping first at our East Coast warehouse. It’s going extremely well. We are now rolling out RF-SMART Shipping to our other locations,” said Gary.
Ruling Out Errors
The stakes are high when the inventory going out the door has an expiration date, and they are even higher when each of Green Rabbit’s customers have different preferences for the way the inventory is packed and shipped. That’s where RF-SMART Shipping’s ability to write custom rules comes into play. For each order that goes out, the shipper is automatically notified of which carrier the order should be fulfilled through.
Plus, RF-SMART’s “scan, scan, ship” model means that the shippers never have to use a keyboard or mouse to complete an order—all they need is a simple wedge scanner. “Shipping is much faster. Our shippers get through orders a lot quicker. They can process orders more efficiently. There’s less data entry issues now because of the ability to scan,” said Gary. “The shippers have told us that it’s much easier to use than our previous solution.”
Listen Now: Green Rabbit joins the RF-SMART Podcast to discuss their journey with RF-SMART and NetSuite
Sustainable Solution
The “green” in Green Rabbit doesn’t just refer to their fresh produce, but their commitment to sustainability. They are focused on shipping each product with eco-friendly and recyclable materials. RF-SMART Shipping aids with this initiative by automatically searching for the most economical route for the package to take and providing guidelines for the proper shipping materials per package – eliminating waste all around. With other requirements to consider, including how orders should be packed into compartments and where ice packs should be placed in the packaging, there is no limit to the improvements RF-SMART Shipping’s custom rules can add to the Green Rabbit process.
Leveraging Partner Expertise
Green Rabbit’s supply chain success isn’t just found through RF-SMART’s WMS and Shipping solutions. They have seen time and time again the importance of having a partner in their supply chain. “A lot of times in software, you make a payment, you get the licenses, and then we don’t talk for another year. But that’s not how you grow, that’s just how you survive—and it’s not like that with RF-SMART,” said Gary. The RF-SMART team has worked hand-in-hand with Gary and his team to provide both inventory and NetSuite best practices. “The team at RF-SMART understands our business. They are our partners, and they understand what we’re doing and where we’re going.”