Built For
BikeFit
Manufacturer and distributor of bicycle fitting tools & products
Operations at a Glance
The lack of a central system made it difficult to have full visibility within the company.
An inventory and business management software with powerful features to boost company insight and efficiency.
Drastically improved daily operations with greater warehouse efficiency, accuracy and visibility.
Making a Difference for Cyclists
BikeFit, a professional bike fitting company®, established in 1995, produces bicycle fitting tools and products that help alleviate physical discomforts active cyclists and triathletes regularly face. The addition of BikeFit products like Cleat Wedges, Leg Length Shims, and Pedal Spacers provide cyclists with more comfort and improved rides.
“Initially the company was created to help people eliminate discomfort on their bicycles. Cyclists were experiencing significant injuries and leaving cycling altogether. Our founder created products to help people customize their asymmetrical bodies to symmetrical bikes to alleviate pain and increase power and efficiency,” Damon Wyatt, Operations Manager said.
BikeFit is not only a creator, but an educator. BikeFit offers educational print, online courses, and hands-on seminars about the philosophy and best practices of bike fitting to private businesses and bike shops.
Years of product development and knowledge have made BikeFit a globally used product by cyclists and triathletes around the world, including an Olympic Gold medalist.
Lacking in visibility and no central system in place meant it was time for an inventory and business management solution
When Damon came into BikeFit it was a very successful, yet small company and he found himself not only in a sales position, but also marketing, administration, customer service and inventory.
We’re small, I wear about 27 different hats. You can ask me any question about pretty much any portion of our company and I’ll have an answer,” Damon said.
Due to a lack of software to manage inventory and the business, BikeFit suffered from a lack of visibility and insight into their operations. Lacking a true daily reading of operations only hindered performance and efficiency. With a 3PL warehouse in the mix, monitoring eCommerce orders and tracking fulfillment proved exceedingly difficult. For BikeFit and Damon, finding software to streamline inventory and business operations was becoming a necessity.
We had a very disjointed methodology that was occurring previously. We have an off-site warehouse that does all of our shipping worldwide, but our process was tedious and convoluted. Our eCommerce system collected orders. I would then manually pull them from the site, and send them in PDF format to our warehouse. The warehouse shipped the order but I didn’t know when it shipped, what was happening. We basically waited for a shipping report three or four days later with an update where then, we were manually entering tracking numbers. The amount of work was astronomical.”
From a visibility standpoint, before Acctivate, BikeFit was essentially blind in their operations.
As far as visibility goes, there was literally zero. To the point where I would get an email and say, ‘Can I get a tracking list too?’ Just to see what had happened.”
When it came to inventory, lack of a system for managing and tracking inventory and viewing availability was only hurting BikeFit.
We would go to our warehouse and do sporadic inventory checks. We’d have to do an inventory adjustment and we’d lose thousands of dollars. The warehouse was not connected to our inventory system. We thought we had more than was actually in our inventory. It was hurting us from a visibility standpoint, not as much a functional standpoint, but our ability to account for our inventory was kind of a nightmare.”
A software with top-of-the-line features to enhance operations, boost efficiency, provide visibility, and lend insight into daily operations
With the help of an Acctivate Onboarding Specialist, Lauren Stine, BikeFit was able to quickly get up and running with Acctivate.
Lauren was fantastic. I can’t say enough about what she did.”
When Acctivate was fully implemented at BikeFit, they made the transition to support services.
I used the living heck out of that service. I was probably on remote support with Acctivate specialists an hour a day, almost every day for a month. We were nonstop. That, I have to say, was probably my favorite part of Acctivate.”
Since the implementation of Acctivate, BikeFit has experienced a massive gain in control and efficiency.
Our efficiency, process, transparency, and communication with our warehouse improved dramatically. Now, I can literally see what my warehouse is doing based on the workflow status. I can observe the process of the pick and respond to customers in a timely fashion with needed packaging information. I go into my reports, I pull my invoices for the day, I can see what was shipped, when it was shipped, it seamlessly puts it in tracking and the tracking syncs to our web store. That process has been awesome.”
Inventory
Now BikeFit’s warehouse is equipped to manage inventory properly, lending Damon a huge hand with maintaining the right inventory loads with less error.
Inventory is probably my favorite part. Every single day I’m checking inventory. The product details help me account for assemblies, works in progress, backorders, on-hand inventory and available products.”
Landed Cost
BikeFit’s products are sold and shipped worldwide. Before Acctivate, determining the true cost of a shipped good, involved many unnecessary steps.
The Landed Cost is fantastic. What we had to do prior to this, without going into too much detail, is we would have to basically do a formula of attaching landed costs and then change the cost of the individual item and create our own system. I’d say, ‘Okay, this item costs us 10 cents apiece, but with duty, with freight, it’s going to have to be 17 cents apiece,’ so we have to input as that. But then you couldn’t go back in and look at those costs. You would just have to be like, ‘Oh, what did I do with that?’ We were forced to maintain a separate notes file .”
The Landed Cost module easily accounts for all potential charges in shipping and handling, making financials accurate and reliable.
Now I’m really happy with the Landed Cost module because I can examine our freight, duty and customs’ payments and how they affect the cost of an item .”
Webstore Integration
Many small businesses struggle with eCommerce order management. But with Acctivate, the web store is scheduled to automatically sync at a user’s time intervals of choice. The coordination between Acctivate and web store allows for streamlined, accurate order management and fulfillment.
The sync process with our web store is incredibly self-sufficient. I set Acctivate on our remote desktop to automatically sync with our web store every 30 minutes throughout the day. The integration between web store, inventory and shipping is seamless.”
Order Manager, Business Alerts & Dashboard
Visuals are important and very useful, especially when operating a small business. With the help of Acctivate’s Dashboard, Order Manager, and Business Alerts, Damon is able to see everything on the agenda in detail at the beginning of the day.
I really like the Order Manager and the Business Alerts. Those two things, I would say give me a snapshot of what I need to look at on a daily basis and I don’t have to go searching through multiple reports for it. Order Manager provides immediate visibility of the picking and shipping process for all of our orders.
The Dashboard allows me to view what I need to reorder, what I’m running low on and what assemblies need to be created. I have them set up, so they come up with my configuration manager on startup.”
10,000 times the efficiency and better for it
Before Acctivate, BikeFit was hindered by disjointed processes and no overall system in place. But with Acctivate, they’ve experienced a shift in efficiency, visibility, accuracy, and insight into their daily operations, allowing for handling present tasks and better forecasts.
From where we were before we started with Acctivate, we are 10,000 times more efficient. You can track me on that number, that’s real. We’re clearly much more efficient than we used to be and I, as a perfectionist, obviously want it to be a certain way. Where we are now is so much farther above where we were before.”
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