bbhugme® Gets Cosy With Brightpearl to Deliver Streamlined International Growth

“To get up and running with Brightpearl took around eight weeks. We felt like we were in really safe hands at every stage”. – Andrea Sundby, Finance Manager, bbhugme®

Nobody needs a good night’s sleep more than an expectant mum – but getting comfy with a growing bump can be really tricky.

That’s why three chiropractors got together in 2014 to create the bbhugme® Pregnancy Pillow, offering pregnant women full body support to improve sleep and relieve tension.

The pillow was an instant hit with mums-to-be, who loved the innovative multi-use design which can be adjusted as bumps grow and used after birth to support nursing.

The hero product went on to win awards across the globe and the Shopify-powered brand expanded into multiple regions, including the UK, USA, Scandinavia and Europe. During the pandemic, growth went from steady to exponential overnight as the luxury sector and ‘comfort’ brands soared.

But, in a familiar story for many start-up e-commerce retailers, rapid growth brought with it operational complexity.

A bump in the road

Andrea Sundby, Finance Manager at bbhugme®, says: “We suddenly found ourselves with a fast-growing DTC operation in multiple international regions plus a growing B2B operation, with listings in big player retailers like John Lewis, Scandiborn and JoJo Maman Bebe.

“We’d been trying to manage our operations and logistics across four global warehouses just using Shopify and spreadsheets – it was becoming impossible.

“We had limited control and visibility. Our reporting, forecasting and integration between sales channels was really poor. That’s when we came to Brightpearl.”

As a leading retail operating system, Brightpearl is packed with built-for-retail features that help fast-growing retailers like bbhugme® achieve their potential.

This includes market-leading inventory planning, a powerful Automation Engine and a library of Plug & Play integrations which offers native, ‘out of the box’ connections to leading apps and tools, including Shopify, Amazon, and 3PL providers.

Unlike legacy ERP systems, which take months or even years to set up and still fail in up to 75% of cases, Brightpearl is implemented quickly and painlessly with full support from a dedicated team of retail experts.

Conceiving success

Andrea says: “Getting up and running with Brightpearl took around eight weeks.

“The service and support was really great at every stage – we felt like we were in really safe hands.

“We were instantly impressed with how well Brightpearl copes with our multi-region, multi-channel logistics. It handles everything without breaking a sweat.

“One of the biggest benefits for me has been the time savings. Everything we did before was very manual. For instance, I’d spend hours a week checking orders in Shopify or invoicing retailers and adding the information to our accounting system. Now everything happens in one centralized hub and all our orders and invoices are processed automatically.

“We can set up custom rules which make the automation even more powerful. For instance, we’ve got a rule that says if an order is from the UK it should only be fulfilled from our UK warehouse.

“We’re a relatively small team of 10, but having Brightpearl has enabled us to stay lean even as we’ve grown because it helps us all be more efficient and more effective. We’re easily saving 5-10 hours a week that we can now spend on more important aspects of the business.

“One team member can now manage multiple tasks thanks to the automation power Brightpearl gives us – before each task would have required two or three days of their time.

“It’s such a relief not to have to spend our time doing mundane manual tasks any more!”

Rock a bye-bye to manual tasks

Thanks to Brightpearl’s native integrations, bbhugme’s complete tech stack – including its Shopify webstores and Amazon storefronts – are consolidated into one handy dashboard.

With unlimited login seats, the whole team can benefit from a range of advanced reporting, retail analytics and warehouse management, enabling collaborative, streamlined working.

Andrea says: “Orders are tracked seamlessly at every stage now and any issues with stock shortages are flagged up in real time. It’s given the whole an all-encompassing view of operations, which actually makes a massive difference.

“We’d previously struggled a lot with the volume of data and reporting it in a way that everyone can easily understand, but Brightpearl has solved that.”

“Brightpearl gives us the data at our fingertips to make informed decisions about where and how to grow – it’s definitely helped us expand with more confidence” – Andrea Sundby, Finance Manager, bbhugme®

By helping the business strip out complexity, Brightpearl has given bbhugme® the freedom to Grow Fearlessly. With a robust system in place that can handle the challenges of scaling and opening up new markets, there are no more bumps on the road to continued growth.

Andrea adds: “Brightpearl gives us the data at our fingertips to make informed decisions about where and how to grow – it’s definitely helped us expand with more confidence.

“We’ve got big plans to continue our growth – especially in the US and in Germany, and possibly in central Europe, too. We’re really excited about what we can achieve.”