Bells of Steel slashes stockouts + breaks into the US market

Bells of Steel virtually eliminates stockouts and break into the US market

The Calgary-based fitness equipment company focuses on home gym equipment and accessories. Whatever your dreams for a gym are, they help you turn it into a reality.

But inventory management and expanding to the US market was closer to a nightmare for Chu. And also management and expanding to the US market was also an issue.

Challenge

As with many online retailers, stockouts were the biggest issue Bells of Steel encountered. Proper stock levels are essential because even missing a bench means an entire home gym set can’t be sold quickly.
And what customer wants to purchase out-of-stock items?
So Chu began to investigate other inventory forecasting programs. He needed something to integrate with WooCommerce, Amazon.ca, and Ordoro, which they already used – a pretty tall order.

Solution

The answer came from a friend of Chu’s who suggested he try Inventory Planner. As soon as Chu loaded in sales data, he had a bird’s eye view of all the inventory levels.
He was delighted with the features that ramped up Bells of Steel’s Canadian sales and expansion to the US:

• Integration. Inventory Planner synched with all of Bells of Steel’s platforms quickly and seamlessly.
• Inventory reporting. Inventory Planner makes it easy to generate inventory and replenishment reports for the Amazon, Canadian, and American warehouses.
• Merging variants. It was easy to merge the correct sales numbers from different SKUs so that new data can merge with the old information.

Results

Stockouts plummeted from 35% to 10% since using Inventory Planner. There are still logistical issues or delays, but every order is accurate.
Chu estimated that Bells of Steel nearly doubled their rate of growth thanks to Inventory Planner. Currently US sales are 1/3 of Canadian sales. In 2021, US sales are projected to be on par with Canadian sales. And with that success, Bells of Steel looks overseas to continue expansion.