Well Delivered by Flowspace: Building ecommerce operations with Rebecca Densmore

Full Transcript

Narrator (00:00): Welcome to Well Delivered by Flowspace, the podcast unpacking real insight for building and scaling modern supply chains. Today we’re joined by an operations leader to break down what it really takes to grow from strategy and systems to the role of technology.

Ben Eachus (00:17): Welcome to the second episode of Well Delivered put on by Flowspace. My name is Ben Eachus. I’m the co-founder and CEO of Flowspace, a fulfillment platform helping brands store and distribute their inventory around the country. Joining us on our podcast is Rebecca Densmore. And I had the privilege of working with Rebecca about 10 years ago at the Honest Company. And she has a tremendous amount of experience scaling both direct-to-consumer operations as well as wholesale operations and leading massive technology implementations and all things retail technology and operational. So really excited to have you on the line here, Rebecca.

Rebecca Densmore (00:25): Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me, Ben. After all these years, it’s so nice to connect with you. I mean, I know we’ve stayed connected here and there, but it’s nice to see you and be on your platform today.

Ben Eachus (01:05): Well, Rebecca, I asked all our guests, how did you get started in operations? Like, what was… did you ever since you were a little kid, you were just dreaming of getting to direct-to-consumer and wholesale operations or how did you get started?

Rebecca Densmore (01:17): Oh gosh, definitely not. I always wanted to do international work like aid work. That was always kind of my passion and what I wanted to do—any NGOs, things like that. But I am from Maryland, so DC is just, you know, a stone’s throw away. And I ended up working for an agency and I worked next to the White House. I worked for a company out of college that they were agents for the Iraqi Ministry of Trade. So we purchased bulk wheat and rice for the Iraqi government. And I worked right next to the White House, like right on Farragut Square. So it was kind of my first intro into operations, purchasing, procurement, logistics, you know, organizing all the ships, going from buying rice in Thailand and negotiating the contract, procuring all the products at a pretty large scale. And then, yeah, I just kind of took it from there and moved to LA a couple years after I was in that role and then landed some roles in the fashion industry here in LA, some startups, and then I really kind of just got so excited about the startup industry. A lot of cool opportunities here in LA and just kept going with operations and supply chain and I’m really glad that I did. I think it’s a good fit for me. And it’s been cool to be a part of really some great brands that have really grown a lot. So, yeah, my start was interesting. Not really where I intended to be, but I’m happy to be in this space.

Ben Eachus (02:48): Awesome. Well, I know we’ve talked a lot about this and one of the I think the reasons operations is exciting is it directly touches the customer experience. So, I’m curious like you’ve had many different roles at different companies. Is your recommendation that operations and customer experience sit separately or really as part of one group?

Rebecca Densmore (03:07): Yeah. Well, I loved, you know, at Honest they tapped my shoulder to oversee our DTC customer experience team and then also our retail operations team as well. I always really thought of customer experience or like any customer service function to be very marketing focused, right—a lot of communication to the customers. But what I really loved about binding and joining the two was that you could really see the efficiencies of operations if there’s a seamless transition. What was going on at the floor with the warehouse or distribution, you could really directly communicate that and kind of understand that vision for the team specifically. I like when you can really combine the marketing and the communication aspect for the customers with an operational lens. It gave me a broad vision for the company and I always thought, you know, operations really is like a team that has a 360 view to the customers and kind of the business of what’s going on and then really putting those two departments together. It made a lot of sense, I think.

Ben Eachus (04:10): No, that’s awesome. And I want to shift gears a little bit and talk a little about your experience with wholesale. So one of the trends that we see with many of our customers is they start selling their products direct-to-consumer but as they reach a certain inflection point they want to distribute their products into brick-and-mortar channels. And I think what I didn’t appreciate when I was at Honest was that those systems, the buying patterns, like everything is kind of different. And I remember when you joined the team at Honest, you were probably the only person with wholesale experience and implementing those systems. So just wondering from your experience, what are some words of wisdom that you can talk to the listeners out there about a brand that is trying to get into wholesale? What’s the infrastructure that they need?

Rebecca Densmore (04:56): Yeah. Well, gosh, I know. I remember joining the team and I was the first retail hire, wholesale hire for the team and a lot of the infrastructure we were building, right? And I know that that was really exciting time but really, you know, needing to have the infrastructure in place. You know, something about having the insight for DTC, right—you have all the analytics and the insight as to how our customers are buying—but when you hand that off to a brick-and-mortar or a distributor you kind of lose some of that insight. So I think building the infrastructure is really important. Having visibility to any like EDI communications of how those customers are buying, building those relationships with the buyers, right, for each of those distributors or companies. I think the infrastructure is so important and the technology behind it, right? And it just gets me so excited about AI because I feel like this space in supply chain, we’ve just really craved so much efficiency and automation and the world has listened. And we’ve had all these streams of EDI communication, API integrations, right? But now we can really combine all those things together. So, I’m really excited about that piece. But yeah, I think just having that infrastructure in place, right? Just really double down on that is really understanding the business processes behind it too because you could have the technology, but if you don’t have the rules in place. And at the end of the day, if your sales team, accounting, finance team, and marketing teams aren’t holding hands on what the rules are that the infrastructure needs, then you’re not going to be as efficient as you can be for the customer. If you can really hold hands and create great logic and business reasons and rules, there’s a lot that you can really do to help to optimize the efficiency for the business and ultimately like the customer gets impacted by all that.

Ben Eachus (06:44): Yeah, it makes a lot of sense and I think one of the things that you hit on is it really is a cross-functional, like entire company type of thing. Like you can’t just hire one person in operations and hope that this goes well, right? Because there’s just those inventory holding implications. I remember you were kind of educating people on, for this retailer, we need to hold 12 weeks of stock, right? Like that’s a new requirement. You need to set up all the EDI systems. You need to invoice appropriately. You need to apply discounts or all these like invoicing rules. So, I think that was one of the things that struck me when you joined is just kind of like educating the entire company about like what all this actually meant because it’s like you can’t just do it in a silo.

Rebecca Densmore (07:27): Yeah, for sure. I mean this… anything, any piece of operations, right? You need to have a seat at the table across the organization. Those relationships are so key and really fundamental to how your business is run. So having that, you know, leadership presence and not just the person that’s like kind of running things behind the scenes, but being able to architect a lot of that through conversations and relationships is I think really key and pillar to success, too.

Ben Eachus (07:51): And now you’ve been part of many companies that are undergoing this transition or this, I would say, combination of adding channels. Are any common pitfalls or things where you see teams get caught off guard as they’re trying to do this?

Rebecca Densmore (08:05): Well, I think it goes back to holding hands and kind of the relationship piece, right? Because you just see they might have their own set of, you know, ideas or initiatives. Wholesale or retail might have theirs as well, but understanding what they are and then setting up the processes behind the scenes to support those will be really important. What I’ve seen done really well in some of the organizations that I’ve been a part of is having like a daily standup with the leadership team from different departments and saying, “Hey, we have x amount of inventory. This is how much we’re getting in this week and this is how much this, you know, this supplier or this buyer wants to purchase. How do we allocate that inventory?” I think that is what helps the business to run effectively and efficiently. Having that communication and then the system that you built together sets everybody up for success and it really supports the different channels. So I think just making sure that you’re all holding hands at the end of the day and building the infrastructure and the tools and the systems for the teams.

Ben Eachus (09:07): That’s awesome. And a little about the systems. What is kind of like the starter version of this? Like, we can’t all go from zero to 100 and have all these implementations going on simultaneously. Like if you were starting at a new place, like what’s kind of the basics that you would need to get a wholesale channel off the ground?

Rebecca Densmore (09:27): Yeah. Well, I mean a lot of my focus has always been order management and I think of that for a reason. I go into a store and I fully appreciate the product that’s on the shelf because I know all the things that it takes to be able to get that on the shelf for the customer. But I think you know how the team is run and how the systems are put into place. I mean, getting your infrastructure and your ERP or order management system for me has been really critical because if you’re not able to process that order, you’re not able to receive in that inventory for whatever reason from the system, you can’t support a customer’s order, right? So setting up day one your systems, choosing a really key vendor to support you, having a good 3PL, having a good technology vendor—those are really, really key high-line items.

Ben Eachus (10:21): And can you define what do you mean by order management system? There’s so many different definitions, but like for you, what does that entail and what is the functionality that you really need to get started?

Rebecca Densmore (10:33): Yeah. Um, well, EDI—I didn’t hit on that one. Yeah. So receiving in the orders from any of those retailers as well versus, you know, back in the day would be email via PDF, and I’m sure there are a lot of companies that are still doing that. But yeah, EDI—all the way from EDI to API integrations, Shopify into your order management system. The ERP holding the entire accounting system for the company. But order management for me: how do you make sense of where your orders are going? You know, which distribution does it make sense to go to? How do you optimize from a cost perspective where that order should ship from? And also that impacts the customer, right? So deciding your order that’s shipping from Columbus doesn’t get shipped to Los Angeles; it gets shipped from a provider or 3PL or your own warehouse that’s a more optimal location. And the order management system makes those decisions for you based on all of the criteria that you put into place. And then anything from like a forecast tool that says, you know, we want to save enough inventory for this customer because we want to spread out our inventory, or we want to prioritize this customer over another customer if we have enough inventory or when we don’t have enough inventory—maybe they have a marketing update and whatnot. So building a lot of that, the tools in place, but doing it in a way that the orders are running and they’re dropping to the distribution center all the time and you’re not holding up the business of the customer’s orders, receiving it and getting it out. I think, you know, order management’s basically that, but there’s a lot that goes into it for sure.

Ben Eachus (12:12): For sure. And I remember when we worked together we were implementing like four different systems at once. So probably not the optimal state, but live and learn. So we’re always… we always have our hand in a million different pots, right? So that’s that. And one of the things that I think is evident in your career is just you have a ton of experience not only leading these implementations, but also rolling them out to the company. And any words of advice that you can share about lessons you’ve learned about the actual roll out—like getting people to buy in and actually use the system because they do kind of force you to make hard decisions or standardize some of the stuff that used to be tribal knowledge?

Rebecca Densmore (12:53): Yeah, I think bringing people along and making sure that they understand the why and making sure that they understand how their role is impacted by what you’re doing. Maybe if I’m talking to someone in marketing, they might not think that order management or EDI is like a sexy conversation, but you can tie in their work to it and figuring out how you can explain how this is going to positively impact maybe an influencer that they’re working with or how their orders can ship faster by putting this good system. I think bringing people along and having them to understand the why is always really important. Sharing early and often and making sure that you’re really communicating the project. That way you don’t get any surprises at the end of the day. So when you’re launching the system or launching any project, you’ve kept everybody fully informed and brought them along. So I think that’s probably my biggest takeaway is just, you know, you might not think a certain team or department needs to be informed, but making sure people have a seat at the table is a pretty key thing to success, I think.

Ben Eachus (13:53): No, that makes total sense. And just kind of bringing people along on the benefit for each group. And I think you and I both shared a boss who said that every job is sales, right? And you don’t typically think of operations as being salespeople, but internally you need to sell why these things are good for the company.

Rebecca Densmore (14:11): I don’t remember who said that, but I have an idea and I love that.

Ben Eachus (14:16): Yeah. So moving on, like you’ve obviously spent a lot of time implementing these new systems, helping brands launch into these channels. What are some new developments that you’re excited about? Like from a technology or process or any trends that you’re seeing that you’re excited about?

Rebecca Densmore (14:35): Yeah. Gosh. Well, I’ll say I am dipping my toes back into the industry after taking some time off with the birth of my daughter last year. But I think the AI piece is going to be so key and critical and I’m really, really excited. I just started my new role yesterday. So I’m really excited about really tapping into a lot of those opportunities. I mean, I use it so much personally now, but I’m excited to explore what that means for work. But I think, you know, similar to what Flowspace is doing is giving people the opportunity to have these micro-distribution centers in different locations. I think people just want their orders tomorrow. That’s the expectation. And I think that from the fulfillment and transportation perspective, things have changed so much where we’re coming up with ways to get inventory and orders to customers a lot faster. That’s the demand. That’s kind of the world that we live in. So, I really am excited to kind of dive in more there. But I think AI is just really going to transform a lot of the work we do. And I feel like there’s been some hesitancy that I’ve seen about that, but I just couldn’t be more excited about it. I think this piece of the world has just been wanting and craving efficiency and I think it’s just going to be a really exciting thing to tap more into.

Ben Eachus (14:54): Well, thank you for listening to another episode of Well Delivered. A special thanks to our guest, Rebecca Densmore. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and look forward to speaking with you all soon. Thank you.

Narrator (15:53): Thanks for listening to Well Delivered and the operators who keep fulfillment moving. Follow for more episodes like this and we’ll be back next time.