Mintsoft and Kecks
This warehouse management system case study shows how Mintsoft helps apparel brand Kecks, handle their B2C, B2B and subscription order fulfilment.
Who are Kecks?
Kecks are an underwear and apparel brand owned by Ed Warren. Established in 2019, the concept of Kecks was born from a gap in the market identified by Ed after speaking with his friends, who are athletes in motorcycle sports. Together, they discovered that no one was offering the type of underwear product needed by athletes in their sports.
Now, Kecks offers limited edition underwear and apparel, designed and made with premium materials. The garments offer performance, comfort and durability through breathable fabrics, and are accessible to both athletes and mainstream customers too.
Initially, Ed was running Kecks from his own home – after quickly growing the business, he began working with a 3PL for his order fulfilment. After 4 years partnering with the 3PL, the cost of third-party fulfilment began to level and even outweigh the cost of running his own warehouse space. This was when Ed made the decision to take operations back in-house and handle fulfilment himself.
How did Kecks find Mintsoft?
When first searching for a fulfilment partner in 2020, Ed discussed his need for warehouse space on a podcast. A 3PL using Mintsoft reached out to Ed and put themselves forward to help. In comparison to another 3PL service Ed was looking at, who were performing tasks without a warehouse management system (WMS), Mintsoft’s WMS capabilities clinched the relationship.
After using Mintsoft as a client, Ed knew they needed Mintsoft when opening their own warehouse.
Ed said: “I knew Mintsoft from a customer side. I had a portal login from the 3PL that we were in. I knew the basics of ASNs and product management, and the statistics that I needed to look at as a brand.”
He continued, “The thing I hoped for the most, taking Mintsoft on in my own warehouse was clean stock management.”
“With Mintsoft, we can pick single orders so fast and it's helped our business in terms of Trustpilot reviews. We get so many reviews saying ‘great product, fast delivery.’ It helps my business feel like it's getting a great customer satisfaction rating – which for me is everything, as it helps with repeat business.”
How Mintsoft has helped
When Ed decided to take the leap into in-house fulfilment, his previous experience with Mintsoft made his choice of platform a no-brainer.
Easy ASN management
With new products being added every time Kecks launch a new range, having a system that’s easy to add new SKUs to was paramount to their success. Kecks relies on Mintsoft to link to their Shopify store to keep inventory levels accurate and ensure stock is allocated to orders correctly.
“As long as we've done our work with our suppliers, barcoding it and linking it all correctly in Shopify and Mintsoft together, it's seamless. The ASN comes in and we can book it all in stock quickly.”
Customer Satisfaction
As a growing brand, Kecks focuses on ensuring every customer has an incredible experience. The 3 top things Kecks delivers to its customers are great quality products, a unique customer experience and speed and efficiency of delivery.
While using Mintsoft via their 3PL, and in their own warehouse, Kecks has been able to rely on the software to ensure their orders are packed and shipped quickly and without error, which further enhances the customers confidence in the brand.
“With Mintsoft, we can pick single orders so fast and it's helped our business in terms of Trustpilot reviews. We get so many reviews saying ‘great product, fast delivery.’ It helps my business feel like it's getting a great customer satisfaction rating – which for me is everything, as it helps with repeat business.”
Order Batching
To further ensure orders are prioritised for quick shipping, Kecks lean on the batch feature in Mintsoft. For those customers that have selected fast delivery such as ‘DPD Next Day’, Kecks have a pre-set batch template set up that they run daily, making sure those orders are picked and packed first, ready for carrier collection.
Ed said that ‘batching and picking is a breeze’ as they pick orders in batches of 6 throughout the day. He went on to add “It's dead simple to do, you build a template once and just click it every morning.”
Product Support and Training
Despite having used Mintsoft before as a client of a 3PL, using the systems full capabilities for their own warehouse meant Kecks owner Ed, required training to fully understand the functionality he hadn’t used before.
As part of every new customer’s onboarding, Mintsoft provides 2 multi-hour training sessions to run through setting up the software.
Ed said, “Onboarding for me was really good. I ended up getting a really good rounding of what I wanted to look at and of the parts of the software I didn't quite understand. The best thing that helped me, was that everything is recorded, so I've been skipping back through the videos to help remember.”
Furthermore, when Ed has needed assistance to set up or resolve something within Mintsoft, he’s been able to lean on the support team. Having used both live chat and support cases, he couldn’t praise the team enough for helping him.
“The beauty of the support is just log onto the website, start a case, tell them your query and it's back and forth until it's resolved, which is spot on for me.”
“You have the ability to upload videos, screenshots, and anything that can help with the case and help get your issue resolved. We've used that three or four times and it's worked every time.”
"My overall experience of Mintsoft so far has been great. It's really easy to use, once you know how – the training helps with that - I couldn't rate it any higher."
What’s next for Kecks?
Kecks introduced their womenswear and kidswear in 2024, and are continuing to build the ranges in both of those markets – meaning consumers can now buy matching sets for the whole family!
In addition, they’re also building collaborations and they’ll soon launch a new collab-range. They’re looking forward to an influx of orders once the products are launched, which Mintsoft will help the team to fulfil, while maintaining the Kecks brand goals of delivering great products & service, with quick delivery.
“My overall experience of Mintsoft so far has been great. It's really easy to use, once you know how – the training helps with that - I couldn't rate it any higher.” Ed Warren, Owner, Kecks