How Multi-Warehouse Shipping Became Sweet and Easy for Jeni's

Introduction

A new standard in ice cream

Jeni's is more than just a trendsetting purveyor of artisanal ice cream. They're a brand people love.

People go on first dates at Jeni's Scoop Shops, people get proposed to, and have their weddings with us...Our customers send our ice cream for Mother's Day, bereavement gifts and anniversary gifts. We are a part of people's lives.

Chelsea Clements

former Director of Ecommerce at Jeni's

Jeni's wants to create a delightful experience, no matter where a customer is enjoying their product. Whether in one of their Jeni's Scoop Shops or opening up a signature Jeni's orange delivery box at home, a customer should always have a memorable experience.

Objectives

Shipping ice cream from multiple warehouses made sweet and easy

When you're shipping ice cream, you have very specific needs. These temperature-sensitive, perishable items require extra care and attention, otherwise, customer's will receive a melted, soupy mess instead.

This is especially true for Columbus, Ohio-based Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.

To grow their eCommerce business, Jeni's needed a partner that could help them ship ice cream effectively and retrieve rates from multiple fulfillment locations.

Challenges

Overcoming Mother Nature to ship ice cream across the nation

In the early days of Jeni's, the ecommerce team fulfilled out of one shipping origin. However, as the brand quickly became a household name and scoop shops popped up all across the country, shipping from one place was unsustainable.

• Shipping ice cream across the country requires special planning
• Unwanted temperature changes are always possible
• Risk of pints melting during transit could become a real serious issue

Jeni's eventually opened up more than one fulfillment location to service customers more effectively. However, to keep their online business and cold storage supply chain going, they needed a way to automatically pull and manage shipping rates from multiple warehouse fulfillment locations.

Solution

Effective rate retrieval from multiple fulfillment locations

“ShipperHQ helped us enable multi-warehouse fulfillment logic for our BigCommerce store, which grew the business. This came in handy during a crisis when landslides in California prevented us from getting shipments out of one of our fulfillment centers.”

Because the Jeni's team does not have developers of their own, a natural disaster like this would have caused a shut down of their entire ecommerce business. Thanks to ShipperHQ, this didn't happen and they could continue shipping ice cream.

With ShipperHQ, Jeni's is able to:

• Implement a shipping strategy at checkout based on their customers' needs
• Enable shipping cut-off times
• Get real-time rates from FedEx Priority Overnight
• Show accurate delivery dates
• Configure multi-warehouse fulfillment logic

Delivery Date Logic Win!

Relying on ShipperHQ to calculate delivery dates has saved the frozen food ecommerce company 131 hours per year.

Key Results

Not just an add-on or third-party integration

ShipperHQ also partnered with Jeni's to enhance their customers' ecommerce experience in other ways, like setting shipping cut-off times, and automating flat rate shipping and real-time FedEx Priority overnight delivery.

They also helped us with things like delivery dates, which is especially important for shipping ice cream. Customers send Jeni's as gifts…the last thing they want is for a loved one to receive a melted box of ice cream.

Chelsea Clements

former Director of Ecommerce at Jeni's

Clements added, "They're very knowledgeable in all aspects of ecommerce. And they've been great with helping us with our tech stack, giving us advice and honest feedback about things we could try or avoid. ShipperHQ isn't just an add-on or 3rd party integration piece to us. They're a partner."