Kettlewell Colours

Producing 300 shades of bright-coloured clothing for women, Kettlewell Colours an online fashion retailer, ships up to 140,000 parcels a year worldwide. This ethical company use environmentally friendly materials of the best quality to ensure the impact on the planet is reduced. Kettlewell uses Royal Mail and DHL Express through Intersoft to manage all their orders and ship to rainbow-loving women in across the UK, Europe and the USA.

The challenge

Online fashion retailer Kettlewell Colours had been working satisfactorily with Intersoft’s Intelligent Shipper solution since 2018, shipping up to 140,000 deliveries a year to around 30 countries worldwide via its chosen carrier Royal Mail International.

However, when its US market grew from almost nothing in 2019 to 20% of its business in 2021, the company knew it would need an additional carrier to cope with demand.

Then, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the existing Royal Mail International carrier service, combined with the challenges of the United States Postal Service (USPS), could no longer meet the average delivery time of around five days. In some instances, deliveries slowed to upwards of three weeks. Kettlewell Colours needed to act quickly.

The solution

One of the major advantages of Intersoft Intelligent Shipper is its ability to integrate multiple carriers through one delivery platform.

Setting up a new carrier partnership can be a lengthy process for some retailers as every carrier has a specific set of credentials they have to adhere to. Had Kettlewell Colours had to do this with DHL Express themselves, it could have been slow and complicated.

Fortunately, as Intersoft is a DHL Fast Track partner (as it is with FedEx Compatible) it was able to get Kettlewell Colours live and shipping in a matter of days.

The result

Already an Intersoft customer, the integration of DHL has enabled Kettlewell Colours to focus on fulfilling its customers’ orders while Intersoft enables the shipping to almost take care of itself.

“Everything is automatic,” says John Nicholson. “As soon as an order is placed, a form with a bar code is produced. One of our warehouse staff will scan the barcode and the DHL Express paperwork will be produced automatically.

A free Royal Mail returns label is also automatically generated for UK customers. This is an important feature of Kettlewell Colours’ online offer. ‘We know our customers are more likely to buy from us if they feel their purchase is risk-free,” adds John. For online retailers, easy, and ideally free, returns is an important selling point in driving sales.

The future

Like all UK companies, Kettlewell Colours had been hit hard by post-Brexit regulations. As its third biggest market is Germany (UK and the USA  being the first and second), it is currently looking for an Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) solution so it can avoid multiple VAT duties and soaring shipping costs.

However, with Intersoft having recently partnered with four new German carriers (DHL Paket, GLS Germany, DPD Germany and Deutsche Post), Kettlewell Colours should be able to overcome this problem in the coming months and Intersoft looks forward to the continued partnership.