V Shred turned to Stord to streamline their fulfillment, obtain visibility into inventory and orders, and ultimately muscle up their customers’ delivery experience, while saving their team valuable time.
About V Shred: Building a Fitness Movement
Despite the well-known benefits of regular physical activity, a significant portion of the U.S. adult population struggles to add it in their lives. In fact, 25% to 35% of US adults have sedentary lifestyles and no regular physical activity1.
However, the global health and fitness club market is projected to reach over $200 billion by 20302 indicating a strong interest in well-being. While the desire to start a fitness journey is evident, maintaining consistency proves to be a challenge for many. This is often due to a lack of personalized guidance and the difficulty of integrating fitness into everyday life.
Addressing these very pain points is V Shred. The company was founded in 2016 with the mission to make transformative fitness accessible3. Recognizing the unique needs of each fitness journey, V Shred offers customized workout and nutrition plans with a range of premium weight loss and wellness supplements from their sister company, SculptNation.
Unlike traditional gyms where nearly 50% of new members quit within six months4, V Shred is impacting sustainable change by engaging over 5 million customers worldwide with flexible and convenient at-home workouts boasting a 70% engagement rate3.
To date, V Shred has helped over 3.1 million customers with their Fat Loss Extreme program, sold over 1.3 million custom diet plans, and shipped over 2.3 million supplements, serving a global customer base in 228 countries. With rapidly increasing volume, ensuring seamless delivery of products is an undertaking but remains a critical commitment.
Struggling to Scale with Fractured Fulfillment
Due to high-speed growth, V Shred’s existing infrastructure began to give way under the weight of increasing demand. The previous fulfillment setup was a patchwork of disparate systems and manual processes, creating serious operational hurdles that impacted efficiency and the consumer experience.
"We were simply growing faster than our current infrastructure could handle," admits Rui Goncalves, Director of Supply Chain at V Shred. "Our team was exerting tremendous effort every day to get products out the door, but it was not sustainable nor scalable. We needed a new partner that could provide the technology and expertise our historical partners lacked, especially to address our visibility on all orders and reliably get products out without incident to both our eager DTC customers and our B2B retailers."
One of the most pressing issues was the lack of robust lot and expiration tracking. This critical function was largely managed through manual spreadsheets and references to certificates of analysis. This not only created inefficiencies but also led to substantial financial write-offs due to expired inventory and even customer complaints about receiving old products.
Furthermore, V Shred's operations were splintered across multiple fulfillment providers for their B2B and Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) orders. This fractured approach meant a lack of global inventory visibility, making it nearly impossible to get a unified view of their stock.
Paying the Price for Disorder
The manual effort required to track orders was immense. This led to the customer experience team fielding a high volume of "Where Is My Order" (WISMO) inquiries, hitting over 5,000 per month and heavily burdening their resources.
The severity was labeled a "nightmare" scenario where their previous provider stopped processing returns for three months, resulting in "17 full Gaylords that were in the backlog," forcing V Shred to issue blind refunds and opening them up to potential fraud.
Adding to their difficulties was parcel instability, including an unexpected shutdown of a previous carrier, which threatened to disrupt their entire delivery network. Even routine tasks like Amazon FBA replenishments were found inefficient, lacking the streamlined process needed for a high-volume business.
Want to see how you stack up?
Discover how your brand performs and compare it to 2 competitors for real actionable insights. Over 250 different metrics are collected to determine the quality of fulfillment and consumer experience.
Unified Fulfillment Lays Strong Foundation
The compounding pressure of fragmented systems, manual interventions, and a lack of real-time visibility made it clear that V Shred needed a different solution to maintain its growth trajectory and uphold its commitment to customer satisfaction.
After exploring various options, V Shred found a compelling answer in Stord. V Shred was drawn to the robust technology platform and a strong sense of collaborative partnership.
The physical infrastructure of potential partners was also a huge consideration. Stord's fulfillment centers impressed with their high levels of cleanliness and GMP certification. This was proof of a commitment to quality and compliance that was crucial for V Shred's sensitive product lines. This dedication to maintaining stringent standards provided further confidence in Stord's ability to handle V Shred’s operations effectively.
“Ultimately, we landed on Stord, heavily based on the tech that was available as well as the sense of partnership that we felt like we were getting into," explains Rui Goncalves, Director of Supply Chain at V Shred.
A central component of Stord's appeal was the Order Management System (OMS), Stord One Commerce. Unlike V Shred's previous reliance on disparate systems and manual tracking, Stord's OMS provided a single, unified platform that integrated all V Shred’s sales channels, offering real-time visibility into inventory and orders across their entire network.
This immediately addressed the "visibility blind spots" and also streamlined order processing. The consolidation of their B2B and DTC operations under “one roof” eliminated fractured inventory issues. V Shred got a full view of their entire fulfillment process.
Stord's multi-node network also began to optimize transit times and costs by bringing products closer to V Shred’s customers.
Technology-Driven Solutions Power Performance Gains
Stord's technology offered upgrades across several critical areas. Lot and expiration tracking are managed within the OMS, replacing cumbersome spreadsheets. This led to a substantial improvement in inventory accuracy, reaching 99.9%, and minimized waste from expired products to guarantee fresher supplements reach customers.
The OMS also addressed the high volume of WISMO inquiries. Enhanced visibility and self-service tracking saved the customer experience team significant time, estimated at 3 to 7 minutes per inquiry. This newfound efficiency allows the team to refocus their efforts on higher-value customer interactions.
Furthermore, Stord's diverse carrier network provided a solution to parcel instability. The improved integration with sales channels, including Amazon, also streamlined their previously inefficient FBA replenishment process. This contributed to overall cost efficiencies, where their parcel costs remained roughly flat despite significant general rate increases in the market, and they saw "exceptional" rate reductions for certain shipments of around 70%.
Lastly, the reporting capabilities of Stord's OMS provided V Shred’s internal teams with unprecedented access to crucial data. The reports that previously required customized engineering efforts were now readily available with "a click of a button." This ease of access improved transparency and empowered sales, finance, and compliance teams to gain valuable insights without relying on external support.
With these improvements firmly in place, V Shred could now shift its primary focus towards enhancing its core offerings.
Hitting New Personal Records with Stord
Freed from the headaches of their past operational challenges, V Shred is now positioned for more ambitious growth.
The efficiency and visibility they unlocked with a unified platform provide a strong foundation for seamless new product introductions.
V Shred experienced remarkably efficient onboarding of new products with Stord, often having new SKUs ready to ship even before website listings were complete. This agility is crucial for their plans to further expand product lines and enter new markets.
Stord has become the ideal spotter for V Shred, enabling them to confidently hit new PRs in their core mission of supporting millions on their fitness journeys through a brand built for peak performance.
Get started with Stord
Want to explore how Stord can improve your end-to-end consumer experience at scale? Our team of e-commerce experts can show you how a custom solution with Stord can power the next chapter for your business.