BruMate Simplifies Order-to-Cash and Scales Retail Operations with SPS Commerce

The Challenge

When Zack Suvalsky joined BruMate, SPS Commerce was already part of the tech stack, but the company was using only a fraction of what the network offered.

That gap became a liability fast. Every new retailer carried its own routing rules and compliance requirements, and missing them was expensive.

“If you’re not compliant with retailers, you get a lot of chargebacks. And with massive retailers, orders are typically massive. You really don’t want to mess any of those up.”
— Zack Suvalsky, Business Solutions & Technology Director, BruMate

The push to fix it came from the top, driven by the leadership team and sales organization as the relationships BruMate was landing with major retailers made the old, thin setup impossible to sustain.

The Solution

Suvalsky brought SPS Commerce fully into BruMate’s operations, connected directly through NetSuite, bringing Fulfillment and Fulfillment Monitor together with Assortment under one system. Assortment came online first, to manage which products go to which retailers; Decision Intelligence followed. Business Analyst Calah Ketts led the charge and managed the hands-on integration work.

“One of the things we didn’t have was Decision Intelligence, so we lacked sell-through data with all of our retailers. Now, Decision Intelligence helps us get very strategic about where we’re sending our products.”
— Zack Suvalsky, Business Solutions & Technology Director, BruMate

Together, Fulfillment, Assortment, and Decision Intelligence simplified BruMate’s order-to-cash process end-to-end. A retailer cuts a PO, which integrates into NetSuite, which serves as BruMate’s CRM and ERP, giving the sales operations team full visibility into every SKU and quantity on the order. That feeds directly into demand planning, helping BruMate procure the right amount of product to fulfill what is ordered while staying ahead of what is selling. On the fulfillment side, the team reviews each PO, confirms inventory, and routes it to the correct fulfillment center for that retailer. Having a distinct assortment for each retailer keeps the whole operation competitive rather than generic.

Decision Intelligence also gives BruMate more flexibility in how it accesses and uses its retail data. The team can access that data directly in its Snowflake environment, bringing trusted retail data alongside other business data for broader analysis. As BruMate continues to scale, that gives its teams more ways to put connected data to work across the business.

Suvalsky also rebuilt how BruMate runs NetSuite. Ketts conducted much of the hands-on configuration behind that overhaul, from SPS account setup to customer-specific integration workflows. “We’ve completely overhauled how we do everything within our ERP system when it comes to account management and how we onboard our customers,” he said, crediting how customizable the system is: “I like NetSuite because it’s a lot more customizable to what you need to tailor your business with.”

The Results

In just over two and a half years, BruMate’s trading partner network grew 440%, from 5 to 27 trading partners, spanning four separate fulfillment centers and partners. Ketts oversaw much of the hands-on onboarding as each new trading partner and fulfillment center came online, working shoulder to shoulder with all parties to ensure a smooth transition and SPS integration.

Document volume has grown right along with the business. Roughly 7,500 EDI documents now move through the network, and that number is increasing each month.

Compliance-related chargebacks, once a persistent cost of doing business with major retailers, have been largely eliminated.

“Being more compliant with SPS has eliminated significant chargebacks from major retailers.”
— Zack Suvalsky, Business Solutions & Technology Director, BruMate

When issues do surface, Ketts and the team lean on SPS support to resolve them fast. “The SPS support team provides help and resolution within about a 24-hour span,” Suvalsky said. That reliability has become table stakes for landing new accounts in the first place.

“One of the key requirements that a lot of retailers have is, ‘do you already integrate with SPS?’ That makes SPS key to our day-to-day operations as we continue to scale.”
– Zack Suvalsky, Business Solutions & Technology Director, BruMate

BruMate is already working with SPS on the next phase of the relationship: enabling automated purchase order change requests. Ketts is helping drive the integration work on that effort. “We’re looking to further expand our integration capabilities with SPS to support automated purchase order changes, so retailers can make adjustments on their side,” Suvalsky said, rather than routing every change through a manual conversation.

As BruMate heads into its busiest fulfillment stretch of the year, with new colorway releases going out weekly, the team is leaning further on the network it built rather than adding headcount to match the volume.

Lessons Learned

Suvalsky’s experience rebuilding BruMate’s trading partner operations points to a few lessons for other operations leaders scaling fast.

1. Keep the tech stack simple. Suvalsky is wary of adding tools that overlap. Fewer, well-integrated systems beat a pile of point solutions.
2. Establish good practices before you scale, not after. Looking back, Suvalsky says he’d lock in retailer onboarding discipline earlier rather than fixing it mid-growth.
3. Have a dedicated technical lead in-house. Supporting SPS, fulfillment partners, and retailers from inside the business has become a necessity. Suvalsky credits Ketts, alongside SPS support, as the reason for that success.
4. Share information across departments instead of hoarding it. Suvalsky credits recurring cross-team meetings and open communication with breaking down the silos that used to slow BruMate down.

To learn more about SPS Commerce solutions, request a demo today.