The Little Green Sheep automates its processes and doubles retail turnover with Brightpearl

The background

The Little Green Sheep was founded in 2007 by Mark Nicholls and Paul Maurice with the strong ethic of selling only the best organic and natural baby products. The Little Green Sheep now designs, manufactures, sells and distributes a strong and popular range of baby products, ranging from bedding, to mattresses, to bedside cribs.

After meeting at Aston University, where Mark was studying marketing and Paul did product design, they both went their separate ways to start their careers in their retrospective fields. Shortly after beginning their jobs, they realized they weren’t following what they were passionate about. At the age of only 22, they decided to start their own business and The Little Green Sheep was born.

“We both wanted to do our own thing and do something we were passionate about. Even though we were only 22, we wanted to start our own brand and grow,” Mark Nicholls, Co-Founder and Director, explains. Nine years down the line, they have had incredible success including winning numerous awards including the prestigious Mother & Baby Awards. The Little Green Sheep continues to grow as they sell on two bespoke websites and supply many baby stores.

Based in Inkerrow, Redditch, The Little Green Sheep supplies to some of the biggest baby retailers in the UK including Mothercare, Mamas and Papas, Boots, Babies R Us and 80+ independent baby stores, including fellow Brightpearl customer, Natural Baby Shower. The Little Green Sheep also supplies a handful of retailers in Ireland, Europe and the rest of the world.

The challenge

After starting out as a retailer with an online website, The Little Green Sheep saw an opportunity to increase brand awareness by becoming a wholesaler and supplying their products to other retailers. Previously using the back-end system of their website to manage orders, The Little Green Sheep found it difficult to keep up with the growth of their business.

Key Challenges:

• Lack of automation in the business
• Time-consuming accounting
• Struggling to stay in control of orders

The challenge The Little Green Sheep faced was to find a system that is future-proof, would allow automation, save the business time, improve efficiency and help make accounting easier. “We were struggling to work with many challenges, we needed to save time in our business and become more efficient,” Mark explains.

The solution

Brightpearl helped The Little Green Sheep become more efficient with their time by increasing automation in the business. “Brightpearl has definitely saved us time, helped us align departments and brought people together,” says Mark.

The Little Green Sheep are making the most of Brightpearl’s product features by using order and inventory management, accounting, real-time reporting, CRM and many application plugins including Inventory Planner, MailChimp and Scurri. Mark says: “The best thing about Brightpearl is the continued development and numerous application plugins.”

The Little Green Sheep also highlights how Brightpearl is focused on the needs and growth of businesses. “Brightpearl is an ever-changing solution to help the needs of businesses. Brightpearl’s automation and cloud-based applications give us the ability to adapt and grow.”

The Little Green Sheep has impressively doubled turnover year-over-year and continues to reinvest back into the business by focusing on branding and marketing.

Key Strengths:

• Automated business processes
• Integrated accounting
• Wide range of integrations and applications
• Cloud-based access and connectivity

The future

In the future, The Little Green Sheep wishes to continue its growth, increase its trading in multiple territories, and gain a much stronger awareness and value of the brand. The Little Green Sheep looks set to achieve this as the brand is already in the process of creating another bespoke webstore for the multi award-winning and incredibly popular bedside crib, the SnüzPod.

Not only does Mark want to focus on The Little Green Sheep as a business, but he wants to continue the business’ focus on what parents love. Mark explains: “We love creating products that inspire us but nothing is more rewarding than also inspiring parents.”

The Little Green Sheep believes it’s important to focus on the relationship side of things as it’s important to create products that your target audience are really going to love and share your passion of the product. Mark concludes: “You’ve got to really love the focus of your business.”

www.thelittlegreensheep.co.uk