SF Cellular

Info

Client: SF Cellular
Marketplaces: Amazon, Ebay
Platforms: Netsuite

"Amazing service and even better finished product. The team helped tremendously in streamlining and automating our processes, which enabled us to scale. Took the time to understand our business well in advance and provided added value."

Alex Marouf

Vice President

Background

Troy, MI based SF Cellular is a leading reverse-logistics and distribution company providing recycling, repair, refurbishing, testing, and data sanitization services for the wireless and consumer electronics industries. Operating traditionally via a network of sub-agents, through 2017 and 2018, SFC began to recognise an opportunity for direct to consumer sales through online marketplaces, under its new Cellcow brand.

SFC’s initial approach to marketplace sales, before ChannelUnity’s involvement, used a plug-in for its Magento website, which in turn drew certain product data from a Netsuite back-office system.

SFC reached $100k per month of sales of Amazon and Ebay, but these 1^st generation integrations held the business back. For example:

Difficulties managing unique item records for serial-numbered pre-owned devices, and matching these to recognised Amazon ASIN numbers. This restricted SFC to listing only a fraction of its available inventory on marketplaces.
Listings failed to achieve the exposure they deserved;
Inventory not updated automatically, leaving the business at risk of taking orders for inventory it did not have.
Orders had to be imported manually, slowing the fulfilment process and
Separate plug-ins were used for Amazon and Ebay, which added unnecessary complexity and increased operating costs.

Sync Channels from ChannelUnity

SyncChannels was implemented in mid 2019. The solution immediately resolved the business issues, proved much more robust and reliable, and provided added capability.

Instead of relying on the Magento ecommerce platform, SyncChannels connects into SFC’s Netsuite ERP, allowing access to native information on available inventory. SyncChannels is a customisable solution, built inside Netsuite, and also leveraging ChannelUnity’s proven capability and decade of experience in online marketplace integrations.

SyncChannels agility and ability to be customised allowed the marketplace integrations to take account of custom product attributes held in Netsuite and handle sales orders for specific serial numbered items. Orders now flowed automatically into Netsuite, and the solution was able to manage all of SFC’s marketplace channels within a single, consistent framework.

Results

The new approach allowed SFC to list many more products. At any one time, SFC has around 2,000 products listed on Amazon and Ebay, based on live inventory in Netsuite. There’s no risk of overselling, as the solution updates across multiple channels in near real-time. When a unique serialised item is sold in one channel, it becomes unavailable in the other channels almost immediately.

The increased product offer has allowed SFC to capture much more marketplace traffic, and boost sales from $100k per month to over $1m per month. That increase occurred in the space of 2 months from going live.

Able to reinstate their Amazon account after being flagged (checking with Emmet exactly what happened here)

SFC’s marketplace sales continue to grow month over month as they bring new marketplaces online quickly and smoothly at no additional cost. The solution has allowed SFC’s entire business model to pivot, from agent-based sales to direct B2C sales at higher margins.