Case Study

SLA The Label by Sarah Ashcroft

SLA logo

Fashion eCommerce

Business impact

Scaled up operations to manage fluctuating volumes

Increased SKUs by 900% in 18 months

Improved the customer experience to achieve an ‘Excellent’ TrustPilot rating

SLA The Label upgrades their eCommerce order fulfilment operation to achieve an ‘Excellent’ TrustPilot rating and increase product lines by 900%

SLA The Label is a luxe sportswear brand created by fashion influencer Sarah Ashcroft. Sarah Ashcroft is one of the UK’s most successful influencers with 1.2 million Instagram followers. Sarah created the brand SLA The Label in 2019, initially selling on eBloggers, a marketplace for celebrities and influencers to sell new and pre-loved fashion but now selling from a dedicated SLA The Label online store.

The brand has regular peaks driven by the social media buzz surrounding new product launches and a customer base of very demanding young women with high service expectations. The brand’s previous fulfilment partner did not have the capability to plan for fluctuating parcel volumes, which led to some major customer service issues.

“It was chaos! Stock was mixed up in boxes with the wrong SKUs and barcodes, which made it very difficult to fulfil customer orders as promised. This led to customer service problems, with wrong items being despatched and orders being delayed. We knew our customers deserved better.”

SLA really needed a fulfilment partner that could offer the agility and flexibility to despatch orders on time, every time, and protect the customer experience.

Just 6 weeks after first launching the brand, the SLA team moved all stock to the GFS Fulfilment warehouse in Newbury. With a purpose-built fashion department and state of the art technology, GFS Fulfilment was able to offer this growing business the expertise and service they needed to pick, pack and ship orders more accurately and efficiently, as well as the ability to scale up when needed.

The GFS Fulfilment team meticulously counts, checks and scans every item twice before being booked in, with a third scan and check when orders are ready to be picked, packed and shipped to the customer.

GFS Fulfilment also scales up to support any planned product launches, scheduling temporary staff and extra carrier capacity in line with agreed timeframes to ensure timely despatch of every order. On a typical day, SLA receive around 20-100 orders, though on the first day of re-launching the brand with GFS Fulfilment, a massive 500 SLA orders were shipped and delivered to customers without a hitch.

This combined with offering a 2 day and next day delivery service, as well as economy and express international options, means that customers worldwide can receive delivery of their orders exactly when they want them.

Fulfilling SLA The Label orders – What’s the eCommerce fulfilment process?

  1. GFS receive pre-advice from the manufacturer
  2. Manufacturer ships stock direct to GFS Fulfilment centre in Newbury
  3. Every item is counted and scanned
  4. It’s then re-counted and scanned again!
  5. Each SKU is stored in its own picking bin within our dedicated fashion facility
  6. Orders come in directly through our WMS via Shopify
  7. We pick, check, scan and pack items ready to be shipped to the end customer
  8. Each order is packed with an SLA branded flyer bag and a branded despatch note
  9. Carrier label is produced via GFS Selector and order is shipped off to customer with full tracking information provided
  10. Returns are sent directly back to GFS, where goods are quality checked and placed in quarantine if faulty or worn, or placed back into stock if in a resaleable condition

And customers have been highly impressed with the service upgrade with the brand achieving an average ‘Excellent’ TrustPilot rating…

“Great customer service and quick order dispatch”

“Good quality, fast delivery. I ordered grey joggings and I am 100 percent happy”

“Delivery is quick and the sizing is always perfect! Would definitely recommend!”

“Quick and easy delivery!”

“Ordered a tracksuit, it came within the time frame stated and I was updated frequently about my delivery”

“I’m from Germany and ordered several times now, never had an issue with the shipping or anything!”

– Trustpilot, 2021

For now, our job here is done! Since improving the customer experience, Sarah and her team have been able to reach the next stage of their business growth, hiring more staff and adding new product lines. In 18 months, the brand has successfully grown their product collecting, now offering a huge 700 SKUs – up from just 72 when they started in 2019.

This means SLA The Label will soon be moving to an even bigger pick and pack warehouse where they can scale up their operation even further in order to support their ever-expanding product lines and sky-rocketing parcel volumes.

“GFS has really saved the day when we were really finding our feet as a new business. The amazing facilities at Newbury and the expertise and professionalism of the team really helped us take the business to the next level. Now we have much happier customers and have been able to focus on developing our product lines, marketing and growing sales. We know the next year will be bigger and better – thank you GFS!”

Sarah Ashcroft

About the company

  • Luxe sportswear brand created by one of the UKs most successful influencers Sarah Ashcroft
  • Founded in July 2019, sales are driven by highly-anticipated new product launches and buzzy social media campaigns
  • This means volumes can fluctuate between 20 and 500 orders a day!

The need

  • To improve the customer experience after too many customer service complaints
  • To improve the organisation, efficiency and speed of order fulfilment
  • To enable continued sustainable business growth

The GFS Solution

  • GFS Fulfilment
showing products in warehouse