Automating the Purchase Order Process to Manage Double-Digit Growth

400% spike in demand for nutritional supplements drives supplier to automate their retail order fulfillment.

Automating the Purchase Order Process to Manage Double-digit Growth
  • Company Type:
    Supplier
  • Industry:
    Health Food
  • Headquarters:
    Shelton, CT
  • SPS Solution:
    Fulfillment

For more than 30 years, Vibrant Health has produced plant-based nutritional supplements, improving quality and potency, and being transparent about what goes into each bottle.

The supplier:

  • Ranks #1 on the BE Top 100 list of top black-owned businesses
  • Sells their products at 6,500 retail locations
  • Distributes their supplements in the U.S. and 11 countries

Recently, the company saw large spikes in its orders as consumers focused on their health during the pandemic. When sales of their immunity products increased 400 percent, their purchase order process managed them efficiently with automated retail order fulfillment.

Improving the Purchase Order Process

The supplier’s customer service team consists of eight individuals who were tasked with processing orders from all retail channels. 

“There were days that we would be hit with 300 orders between Whole Foods, Sprouts and other large chains. Using the SPS platform, we’re able to process those orders efficiently with less employees.”

–  Paige Parker, Co-President, Vibrant Health

Using SPS Commerce Fulfillment, this small team is able to process orders quickly and error-free. This empowers their customer service team to focus more on educating the company’s customers on their products, as they spend less time manually entering orders.

Eliminating Potential Stock-Outs

Vibrant Health’s order automation with SPS has positively impacted the supplier’s ability to keep retailers’ shelves stocked, even when demand spikes. “We heard back from retailers all of last year, how impressed they were with our ability to keep them fully stocked,” commented Paige Parker.

As former retailers themselves, the Parkers know that retailers often wait until their stock is nearly out before reordering. Shipping orders quickly is imperative to keeping their retailers in-stock and their loyal customers equipped with the supplements they need. Having an automated purchase order fulfillment process enables the supplier to ship most orders within 24 hours.

The Interviewee:

Paige Parker, Co-President, Vibrant Health

Ted Parker, Co-President, Vibrant Health

The Challenge:

Focus customer service staff on education, not order entry
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The Solution:

SPS Commerce Fulfillment
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The Results:

400% increase in Immune supplement sales, processing more orders with fewer staff

“If we didn’t have SPS commerce to facilitate the transmission of these orders, we would have to hire maybe a temp agency or at least for new employees to help with managing the orders.”

-Paige Parker, Co-President, Vibrant Health

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