Case Study
Caraway Sees 280% Order Volume Increase and Expands into Omnichannel Fulfillment
Caraway, a popular brand of non-toxic kitchenware, got its start in 2019 with a heavy focus on direct-to-consumer ecommerce. Evaluating its continued growth, the company noticed an opportunity to expand into retail partnerships and other markets through an omnichannel strategy.
Caraway is obsessed with healthy cooking and their customers’ experience. Whether a customer bought the company’s top-rated cookware directly or from Macy’s, Crate and Barrel, or Target—Caraway’s vision was for its high standard to remain the same. ITS Logistics helped Caraway realize that vision through a complete omnichannel distribution and fulfillment operation, which supported and empowered Caraway’s retail and dropship expansion and a 280% increase in order volume.
When launching Caraway, our goal was widespread availability across diverse sales and distribution channels. Finding the infrastructure—from a physical sense, the supply chain partnership aspect, and of course, the technology angle as well—was crucial to paving the way to achieve that. Working with ITS was a true catalyst to getting to the next stage and expanding to different channels, which is still happening as we speak in 2024.
Challenge
Switching to an omnichannel retail strategy presents a huge opportunity for ecommerce brands, but without the right infrastructure in place to support growth, scaling operations can be very challenging and costly.
“Once that scale takes off, it really is something that you have to get a handle on very fast because it can backfire pretty quickly,” said Riskowitz.
Caraway needed a partner with the expertise, systems, infrastructure, and technology to support its vision. But it would also need more than just a provider engaged in a transactional relationship.
Because of Caraway’s strong commitment to excellence in customer service—providing support throughout fulfillment, post-purchase, and returns—they wanted a partner that shared the same passion and commitment to the satisfaction of every Caraway customer.
Solution
Caraway partnered with ITS Logistics from the start as they began in ecommerce fulfillment. A combination of ITS Logistics’ extensive experience in retail distribution, Amazon FBA/FBM, and Caraway’s increased order volume presented an opportunity to expand into the retail and dropship market.
ITS Logistics’ 3.7 m sq ft distribution network and two-day shipping reach to 96% of the US population gave Caraway the edge it needed to support omnichannel growth. Working together, the companies created a unified approach that used ITS Logistics as a single source for fulfillment and drayage operations, driving significant savings on demurrage and detention charges and streamlined scheduling.
Mark Riskowitz, Vice President of Operations for Caraway, acknowledged that the skill and capacity of ITS Logistics are second to none, but said it’s the way the ITS team approaches its partnership with Caraway that brings the real edge.
Everybody has a warehouse, but this intimate connection into understanding what Caraway wants to do for our customers—that’s the key. A real partnership is where the magic happens.
Results
Caraway experienced substantial order volume growth in a short period of time during their partnership with ITS Logistics—280% in the first year. Since then, the company has expanded its distribution network, added more products to its pipeline, and built relationships with more retailers.
Caraway leveraged the expertise of ITS Logistics to build up significant inventory ahead of peaks and seamlessly scaled to ship large amounts of product to its target retailers to meet times of high demand.
With a footprint approaching 10 times what it was when Caraway got its start, the company continues to embrace omnichannel growth and meet their customers wherever they are through growing and evolving channels.
Today, Caraway is enjoying robust growth and is positioned for continued success in multichannel shipping. The true partnership between Caraway and ITS Logistics has helped make that happen.
This is the part that people always get confused with: supply chain, customer experience, all of it is about people. It's about partnerships. If you take care of each other and you work towards a common goal, you can check that box and approach it from a mindset of, ‘hey, we're both successful. Let's both win.’ There's no reason why that can't be the case.