Customer Testimonial:
“As an e-commerce / online sales company which specialises in men’s underwear, we are faced with some fairly scary logistical issues, especially when put up against a market where next day delivery to the customer is sometimes considered, too slow. Please let me tell you a little about our brand, and just how Brunel has helped us develop.
Box Menswear is a men’s underwear brand, based in Liverpool, England. As a personnel profile, our team are marketers, not logistical experts.
As the company grew from selling just white & black men’s boxers and briefs, to now over 200 SKU’s, with everything from sports shorts to jockstraps, Box Menswear grew fast. As we grew we hit barrier after barrier, and while we dealt with most things, learning as we went, one of the more difficult areas to master for us, was what seemed like an impossibly complicated and antiquated logistical and supply chain.
You see, having quality and comfortable underwear manufactured wasn’t all that hard, I personally am somewhat of a perfectionist, especially when it comes to my boxer shorts, so with regular trips to our manufacturing centre in China, the product was solid, however, then came the acronyms: “FOB / FYA / CYA” and a whole host more on top of those. We did what I think most young online companies would do, and approached one of the major logistical forwarding companies.
We started moving things back and forth using the large multinationals, and while things went ‘ok’ there were issues. Our account manager was a nice chap, that said, we were an incredibly small fish, in what was a very large corporate structure. I recall one occasion where some cargo had gone very much awry from the terms quoted, and there was just no recourse, no real answers, as a business we were totally lost. With the largest freight companies, I also felt ‘pushed out’ a lot by their bigger clients, so in late 2017 after just about making it through Black Friday, but with the prospect of not having stock for Christmas, I approached Mark at Brunel for help, and help us he did.
Where the large global company couldn’t find any space aboard any carrier out of any Chinese airport (and they tried them all), Brunel managed to route our goods quickly and safely through China and finally to us in Liverpool. The goods arriving just a day later than quoted, but in good condition, and it allowed us to deploy an army of packing staff to get items to our customers, just in time for Christmas.
The whole situation of Xmas 2017 was a testing one, but we were guided through the process by Brunel, who were and still always are, just a WhatsApp or WeChat message away.
I really feel like with this nifty Heathrow based company, we’ve never just been ‘sold’, I perceive things very much as a partnership, and we speak directly with staff in both the UK and Shenzhen, meaning no matter what time zone our own staff or indeed our factories or suppliers are operating on, we’re able to get things done.
Oh, and as to all those letters, Freight On Board etc, we know most of them now haha, but in all seriousness, we are a almost a year on from first engaging Brunel on a much stronger footing. We know the whole business much better, and no gent shall be without their boxer trunks or white briefs this Black Friday sales or Christmas due to logistical hold ups.
I’d like to encourage anyway (who doesn’t compete with us) to have a chat with the team if they, like we, were struggling or daunted by worldwide logistics. There’s plenty of cowboys out there, but this firm, is very much one of the good guys.
Thanks from everyone at BoxMenswear”
