Boxraw Knocks Out £1M Overstock With Accurate Forecasting From Inventory Planner by Sage

“Our poor planning decisions were limiting growth. We knew we needed to get better if we wanted to improve cash flow and maximize revenue.” – Izaak Amanna, Commercial Director, BOXRAW

Gut instinct might play a part in some business decisions – perhaps when hiring new staff, assessing risk or negotiating a deal.

However, there’s rarely a substitute for making decisions based on accurate, reliable data, especially when it comes to planning your inventory.

It’s a lesson that BOXRAW – a multichannel, global boxing clothing and equipment brand established in 2017 – had to learn the hard way.

Relying on spreadsheets and ‘gut feeling’ when placing large inventory orders saw the business rack up £1M of overstock, before it joined Inventory Planner by Sage and turned things around.

“We’ve probably made every inventory mistake under the sun, from ordering too little of the right stock to ordering too much of the wrong stock,” says the brand’s Commercial Director, Izaak Amanna.

“Everything that could go wrong with inventory, has gone wrong.

Fighting back from inventory chaos

“Back in 2019 and 2020 we were completely overstocked in all the wrong variants. We were mainly using spreadsheets and we didn’t use data-driven insights, we just based orders on what felt ‘about right’.

“At one point we had £1,000,000 in overstock. If it had been the right products, we could have doubled or even tripled our revenue that year. But it was all the wrong items.

“We had shelves full of really niche products that only five per cent of the market wants, but we were out of stock of the goods that 90% of the market wants.

“We were like ‘why have we got so much stock?’ and the simple answer was because our ordering was so bad.”

Created to serve everyone from championship boxers to enthusiasts picking up the gloves for the first time, BOXRAW is known for its range of specialist gear, including everything from sauna suits and hand wraps to lifestyle products like hoodies and jackets.

Thanks to a string of celebrity endorsements, including from boxing legend Gervonta Davis, and undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, BOXRAW has experienced impressive growth in multiple regions, including the UK, US and Europe.

However, despite its track record of success, the overstock situation at BOXRAW had gotten so out of control that the business had resorted to desperate measures to save its cash flow – including selling off its excess stock at loss.

Izaak says: “We were having to sell to stock clearance companies and get pennies on the dollar. That was a real turning point. We realised that our cash flow could be in a much better position if we just had the right inventory planning in place.

“Our poor planning decisions were limiting growth. We knew we needed to get better if we wanted to improve cash flow and maximize revenue.

“We played around with a few different solutions but our Shopify success manager recommended Inventory Planner and we really liked it because of the cost effectiveness and ease of use.

“I love that you don’t need to be a super-skilled analyst or someone with five years of buying and merchandising experience to use it. It’s pretty much ‘plug and play’.”

Uppercutting overstock

Inventory Planner is a top-rated inventory planning app which reveals which inventory to order, how much to order, and the perfect moment to order it, based on an accurate calculation of how much a merchant will sell.

The forecasts factor in supplier timescales, seasonality and promotions alongside historical sales data, which are then turned into easy-to-understand buying recommendations.

The cutting-edge tool is particularly popular with fast-growth lifestyle and apparel retailers like BOXRAW that operate across multiple regions with multiple sales channels.

With a tech stack that now includes Nosto, Klaviyo and Gorgias, BOXRAW primarily sells direct to consumers via a Shopify-powered website, with around 8% of sales coming from Amazon and 10% of revenue generated by B2B sales to small retailers in Ukraine, UAE and Mexico.

The impact of joining Inventory Planner was instant.

Izaak adds: “We connected to Inventory Planner and all of a sudden we had visibility across all our inventory KPIs. We started to understand exactly which items were overstock and what we were over ordering.

“Plus, Inventory Planner showed us metrics that we hadn’t even thought about before – such as how many weeks cover we had and the value of missed sales from stockouts.

“We started to realize ‘Oh right, we’re completely overstocked with this, we should consider a discount’ and ’OK, if we hadn’t over-invested in X we could have been investing in Y’.

“We still had to do some clearance of the overstock, but we were able to get back to a level playing field. Now, overstock isn’t a problem for us and we have avoided becoming a brand that relies on big promotions and discounts.

“We’re easily able to prioritize the items we reorder so that we’re always stocked with the items we know we will sell. After that, we try new products and other stock. But it’s all based on solid data now. No more guesswork.”

Floats like a butterfly, plans like a pro

As well as SKU-specific forecasting, Inventory Planner’s detailed insights across various KPIs – including variant, vendor, warehouse and product category – are based on 200+ metrics and are highly customizable, giving BOXRAW powerful insight and complete visibility for the first time.

The app proactively flags up hot-selling variants and flags which are slow-moving, so brands can cash in on new trends and discontinue or earmark less popular items for discounting.

It clearly shows merchants the risk of delaying reorders by highlighting the forecast lost revenue.

Izaak says: “Previously, we would order the same amounts for all variants. We didn’t properly understand size ratios and seasonality.

“We’ve learned lots of lessons the hard way, but Inventory Planner has been a game changer.

“Having complete oversight of our inventory has absolutely helped decrease our time out of stock and it’s definitely helped us get in a much healthier place with cash flow.

“Manufacturing issues still occasionally throw us curve balls but Inventory Planner keeps us a step ahead of issues. We can know how much we need to order and when to ensure we don’t miss out.”

Inventory Planner’s native integration with leading tools, along with its handy supplier management functionality and automatic PO functionality, have also had a transformational impact on BOXRAW.

Purchase orders can be created directly from buying recommendations and automatically synced with its 3PL providers, and all supplier comms can be streamlined in one handy dashboard.

“I love that you don’t need to be a super-skilled analyst or someone with five years of buying and merchandising experience to use it. It’s pretty much ‘plug and play’.” – Izaak Amanna, Commercial Director, BOXRAW

Izaak says: “An under-rated feature of Inventory Planner in my view is the way it integrates with our 3PL. We can raise POs with the click of a button and out warehouses always know what’s coming. We can change things last minute very easily. It’s super useful and a major time saver.

“We probably save an hour or two on every PO, and we create about 20 POs at a time. That’s at least a 20-hour saving right there, just on one process, that we can reinvest in more important areas of the business.

“That’s absolutely critical as we continue to grow.”

Want to see how Inventory Planner can boost your business? Book a demo now.