How BatteryJack Succeeds on Amazon SFP With Cahoot

Foreign. My name is Manish Chaudhary. I'm the founder and CEO of Kahoot. I'm joined with Chris at BatteryJack. Welcome, Chris. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.

Yeah, so we're a small, primarily battery company based out of the Midwest, specifically Illinois. We've been in business for a little over 20 years now. My title is operations manager of fulfillment, which just really means I just wear a lot of different hats. So that's why I get to have this conversation with you and. But more or less I handle the day to day and essentially getting all our products out the door and to the customers on time.

So you're dealing with the gory details of shipping every single day and hazmat, which is not easy. Tell us a little bit about the technology that you were using in your warehouse before you joined Kahoot. And obviously at the time you had multiple warehouses. Tell us a little bit about the challenges that you were facing using your previous solution and what that was.

So originally before Kahoot, we had to utilize actual multiple different platforms to get the best rates possible. So for example, the bulk of all of our small parcel shipments we process through ShipStation, which isn't a decent platform, objectively, yes, but there's, there's flaws, especially when you're running multiple warehouses. So for a brief time, we opened a warehouse in Florida to kind of help alleviate some of the shipping costs to that lower east coast region from Illinois. We ship a lot of products in that 15 to 20 pound range. And over the past couple years, not just during COVID but pre Covid rates just were astronomical. We're talking stuff that was at $1.12 to ship, going up to 23, 20, 24. And as a small business, that's kind of hard to eat those costs. And we decided to open up the floor location, but for a bunch of different reasons that didn't work out. And it was really hard to make that work via ship station because we'd have to set up like a ship, separate shipment ID and all these different order rules to make sure the right orders were assigned. And it was just a cumbersome process to say the least.

So how cumbersome, cumbersome would you say that was? I mean, how convoluted and what, what all challenges that you were running when you added a second location and how were you managing that? Can you talk a little bit about that?

So since Amazon orders and, well, just all marketplace orders flow constantly throughout the day and pretty much our shipping deadline on a daily basis was between 2 and 3pm One, the time zone created a barrier for us because certain orders would have to go out from the Florida location and if they were already closed because they're an hour ahead of us, they we would have to ship them from our Illinois location resulting in added cost for us. And then sometimes the shipping delays, especially during the seller fulfilled prime days where you got that order, it had to go out that same day and it didn't matter the cost. Otherwise it was, you were risking a dim to the metrics. And as all the online sellers know, metrics are the lifeblood of running an online business. So it's unfortunately something you can't just look away from. You just have. It's part of your everyday processes. Another issue with Shipstation is like you said, only being really for single warehouses. We were running into like inventory constraints because we couldn't tie in our accounting software. It's not an advanced system and for smaller businesses they don't. A lot of times you're priced out when it comes to Oracle or those large WMS or TMS systems. They're just too expensive to run a company profitably, especially nowadays in this economy. So yeah, I would say that's fair to say that shipstation is just isn't built for a company with multiple warehouses.

Understood. So, and what was life like when you implemented or when you got on board with Kahoot? And Kahoot was being used in both your warehouses simultaneously the first couple weeks.

It was definitely a transition because it's like, okay, now I have this extra time, what am I going to do? Because 80% of our labels pretty much from the get go were automated. So yeah. Did that come with a couple issues here and there? Yeah, sure, because we didn't fully understand the technology side of it. But all the extra time created a litany of different opportunities for us to really understand our business processes and redefine our pricing and how to move stuff across the country both quickly and cost effectively.

Did you look at other solutions as well as you were running into these problems? I mean other shipping software. And I know you are a very smart organization and Chris, you are very much in the know of what exists out there. You know, anything else that even remotely came close to Kahoot?

No, I can't really say there was not at the price point that we started at it. Anything that would offer even remotely similar capabilities were all, I would say at least semi custom built solutions. And as you might imagine, building software platforms from the ground up for specific needs is not a cheap endeavor. So no, I'd say there's not really anything else out on the market that I'm aware of that is capable of the same functions that Kahoot is.

And what percentage of your orders do you think now are automated in terms of what doesn't require any human intervention?

I'd say about 90%. But could it be higher? Absolutely. But because of how we some of our listings are set up, we have multi packs and things like that, things that automation isn't really designed for. So. And the goal when we first transitioned was wasn't to automate everything because we prefer to have at least somewhat of a human factor in there so that we can always see what's going on more or less, even though it's not necessarily the most efficient for us. It's the preferred approach.

Sure, yeah, just having a pair of eyes just to have a second level of comfort, more of a preference. And let's also talk a little bit about, you know, when you were doing seller four four prime, you not only needed your two warehouses, but you also needed additional geographical footprint, especially on the west coast and few others. Talk a little bit about how Kahoot software and technology enabled you to do that.

I'd almost call it like just disruptive in a sense because we were able to actually meet the seller fulfilled requirements. And for the longest time we weren't at that a 99 on time shipping rate. We were at 100. And that was almost exclusively provided to us by the services of Kahoot because we at one point had warehouses, two warehouses in California and one in New York. So we had five shipping locations between our own and home. Our Illinois, Florida and then the Kahoot fulfillment centers. It just made everything click together, more or less.

I mean again speaking of technology, ability to augment your warehouses with the Kahoot network, you know, was that unique and different than anything else that you saw on the market even when you were exploring these solutions are other companies that.

Did it, but like I said, not at the price point and because even though most of our products aren't considered hazmat by the Department of Transportation, by Amazon standards they were so at when we first started, we weren't eligible to send products via FBA or to a lot of these other warehouses without substantial fees and it just, it was a hindrance on growth for us.

Last couple of questions. You've been outstanding, Chris. Thank you. What has exceeded your expectation when since working with Kahoot?

I'd say postal rates and then definitely the convergence between ship assurance and the carriers. It does help Eliminate a lot of the back and forth we have to deal with the carriers when we do have damaged products.

What advice would you have to other octane family of products or anybody who is using a legacy or a traditional shipping software? Whether it's ship station shipping, easy ship works, desktop shipper, you been in the business for over 25 years, you've kind of seen it all. What advice would you have for those SMB merchants or even larger merchants? Because the problem is probably even more magnified for the folks that have even more volume.

I'd say definitely give you guys a call and see if there's some if it would be a good fit because I know just from all the stuff that we deal with on a daily, weekly and monthly basis that a lot of times it's just the cheaper, the easier thing to do is to mix a bunch of different systems together instead of just pulling the trigger on one big expensive system where yeah, I see the logic in that. But at the same time, Kahoot can accomplish quite a few of the different services offered by a litany of different Internet service providers or E commerce providers. So it's really worth the time just to at least hear you guys out and see if your services match their requirements.

Thank you. Chris, what do you estimate how much time savings have you have you achieved with Kahoot compared to Shipstation? What are your thoughts?

Personally I would say a good 15, 20% on a day to day basis. But from a warehouse perspective, thinking probably closer to 35, 40% over ship station when it comes to label creation and just shipping the products out on a day to day basis. More or less for the entire, we pretty much operate eight or nine hour days here. So I would say more or less good 7 hours for label creation up until time to clock out and go home for the day. But with Kahoot it's I'd say down to one or two hours a day.

Wow. So you would say like six to seven hours a day, six to seven days a week. That's almost like a full time person that you're saving with Kahoot. Would that be an overstatement?

No, I think that would be a fair statement.

Awesome. Well Chris, thank you so much. You've been great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Sam.