From RetailOps to Flowspace: Building the future of fulfillment with software

I’ve recently embarked on a new and exciting phase in my 25 year ecommerce journey. Flowspace’s recent acquisition of RetailOps augments a long-term focus on enabling retail businesses to deliver exceptional consumer experiences.

Why We Joined Flowspace

The strategic alignment between Flowspace and RetailOps comes at a particularly relevant time as the line between ecommerce sales and in-person shopping continues to blur. Modern consumers demand a level of convenience and optionality that stretches beyond what efficient warehouse operations alone can facilitate. To meet customers’ sky-high expectations, retail businesses must be flexible and adapt their operations along with the evolution of commerce. This means leveraging the right data, tools and capabilities to provide the fulfillment and delivery experience shoppers expect, across every channel.Omnichannel is a crucial part of meeting the demands of modern consumers, but it’s not one-size-fits-all. DTC, B2B, brick-and-mortar, and marketplaces are all distinct channels, each with varying needs and strategies for success, and independent nuance to execute profitably.Across all these channels and touchpoints, merchants need a layer of connectivity and interoperability, and flexibility that can support the experience the seller provides their shoppers. Without a modern real-time, omnichannel-capable ecosystem that furnishes the necessary visibility, connectivity, and automation, retailers are making decisions in the dark.That’s why combining RetailOps with Flowspace sets the course for the future of independent fulfillment. These technologies provide a foundation for control, unlocking inventory visibility and insights that enable merchants to more profitably orchestrate fulfillment and meet consumer experience expectations, no matter what stage of growth a retail business is in.

Software Accelerating the Future of Fulfillment

Over the past decade, the team at RetailOps built a highly efficient platform with a myriad of tools and configuration options to meet the needs of our customers as they scaled and evolved. This includes enterprise-level brands and retailers with high order volumes, high seasonal demand, and complex product catalogs, who need real-time visibility across the organization into inventory from product sourced to order fulfilled.We built tools to facilitate touch-once data collection processes, automate channel publishing interactions, streamline vendor management, clarify inventory financial detail, and developed a purpose-built software machine for retailer operations. This suite of tools has improved operations and efficiencies for merchants, and it's a testament of our commitment to our customers.Together with Flowspace, these tools are further bolstered by cutting-edge fulfillment software and execution capabilities, giving sellers a flexible platform that now includes the option to leverage a reliable end-to-end fulfillment management system to orchestrate and optimize their supply chains.All of this is backed by an intimate understanding of optimal business and data process flows so we can flexibly support the retail business along its growth trajectory.

Building RetailOps

My journey towards building RetailOps began when the fax machine was still a standard mode of communication, which I used to coordinate dropship orders for my own website. It evolved as I built solutions for a high-volume, fast fashion ecommerce retailer that mandated the shortest possible timeline from inventory receipt to on-site availability, a metric we called “Product Time To Live.” Every day was a race against the clock and honing the software to facilitate necessary processes was a formative experience. One particular holiday season, we were swamped with inbound inventory as many vendors delivered product far later than expected. The time and attention spent on refining software to support the business process paid dividends – we were able to receive, catalog, and publish upwards of 250 new styles per day. As multichannel and omnichannel opportunities materialized, I saw that sellers were all facing a very similar set of challenges, with no solution available that was focused on their operational reality. I realized that there was an unmet need for a software platform designed from the ground up to improve efficiency, built with knowledge gained from driving real outcomes for the business.

Coming Full Circle

RetailOps was conceived with a singular mission – to improve efficiencies for users while driving positive outcomes for businesses. Joining forces with Flowspace, we are able to further accelerate the evolution and utility of our offerings as part of the Flowspace family of products.With Flowspace’s best-in-class fulfillment management software, merchants in every category are equipped to meet ever-increasing consumer expectations for online ordering and convenient, rapid, and cost effective product fulfillment, be it via in-store pickup or delivery to their front door.I'm deeply energized to continue this journey, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in ecommerce and fulfillment software, and flexibly powering independent fulfillment for sellers around the world such that they can exceed their customers' expectations.Thank you for joining me on this journey. Here's to the future of retail.