“The worst thing about Heidler? That it can do so much.”
G+L GmbH – an old hand in pan-European e-commerce retailing.
Cologne-based G+L GmbH is an e-commerce company that is active in mail order throughout Europe and operates a variety of online sales channels such as www.about-tea.de. G+L GmbH offers an impressive range of services covering the entire spectrum of e-commerce processes. With the help of the Heidler Strichcode Shipping System (HVS32), the pan-European company has been able to optimize its own logistics processes and reduce manual work steps. The company has a dedicated team of 25 employees in the areas of development, accounting, logistics, support, purchasing and marketing, which enables it to act as a retailer and service provider at the same time. The team, with extensive experience in online commerce, actively addresses the current challenges in e-commerce, making it an all-round service provider for e-commerce. Since the founding of www.about-tea.de in 2007, the company has recorded a remarkable annual growth rate of 48% and continues to develop.
The limits of the previous system
Antonio Ligato, CEO of G+L GmbH reports, “in the early days we had around 300 – 500 orders a day, but relatively quickly came within the limits of what our previous DelisPrint system could do. We used to print labels in a garage, but now each packing station has its own printing equipment.”
A key to G&L GmbH’s success is its high flexibility in logistics, combined with many years of experience in the e-commerce sector. The daily challenge of efficiently shipping numerous orders via platforms such as eBay and Amazon is met by using modular software for shipping logistics, HVS32 software from Heidler Strichcode.
Using the HVS and the Automatic Polling, Article Processing and Tracking modules to increase efficiency
The HVS32 software, which has now been successfully in use since 2012, has significantly reduced the manual effort and allows more individuality in the processing of orders. In addition, the central system offers a high level of transparency across all shipments. By scanning the barcode of the delivery note number, the label is then printed out directly at the packer’s workstation. The entire process has been sped up by quite a bit, “packers have become 20-30% faster.” More efficient use of labor resources has saved time for other activities. With the help of another update, another Heidler tool is now also used in final inspection to verify that the right items are being shipped to the right customers. The software has ensured a fundamental minimization of the error rate and almost completely automated the shipping process.
Smooth implementation process leads to fast ROI
Transparent prices and a smooth implementation process convinced G+L GmbH to opt for the HVS32 software from Heidler Strichcode. The fast implementation took place in three steps within only 6 to 8 weeks and was fully implemented in the company by a supporting liveboarding process. This involved testing with developers to avoid errors and prevent failures. Significant benefits became apparent after the changeover, not only in the long term, but above all the company benefited from a rapid return on investment (ROI). The software solution from Heidler Strichcode has a very low failure rate of less than 0.05% annually and “is virtually indestructible,” according to Ligato. In the event of an error occurring, the utmost care was always taken to locate and correct the error immediately. Ligato convincingly states, “The worst thing about Heidler? That it can do so much.”
As a result, Heidler Barcode was able to play a part in making G+L GmbH an outstanding player in e-commerce and continue on this successful course with confidence and innovation. In the future, too, permanent changes and adjustments will be made in cooperation with Heidler Strichcode.