Joseph Joseph Achieved 83% Tracking Efficiency Boost and 2-Day Delivery with ParcelPanel

Business Profile

Joseph Joseph is a renowned innovative houseware manufacturer established in 2003 by brothers Richard and Antony Joseph, who combined their know-how in product design and business, respectively. The company boasts an extensive portfolio of brilliantly designed kitchenware products popular among consumers worldwide. With attention to detail and abiding pursuit of perfection, Joseph Joseph has been richly awarded.

Brand: Joseph Joseph

Company: Joseph Joseph Ltd.

Industry: Home & Garden

Platform: Shopify Plus

Country: United Kingdom

Year Founded: 2003

Employees: 51 – 200

Usage: Since April 2023

Carriers: 10+

Integration: Gorgias

During the pandemic, numerous people were quarantined or confined at home, which led to the rise of home cooking. In the beginning, Joseph Joseph’s revenue in 2020 dropped due to wholesale order cancellation and supply chain disruptions. However, after drawing a lesson, the houseware giant quickly expanded its global footprint – Australia, China, Japan, and South Africa in the following 2 years. Facing a seemingly unavoidable slowdown in business growth in early 2023, Joseph Joseph strived to make a turnaround to mark its 20th anniversary.

The challenge: Hitting a business growth plateau after the Covid lockdown

Joseph Joseph took advantage of the bounceback in demand for household goods during lockdowns and focused on selling to direct customers. The DTC strategy yielded great results – business turnover in 2022 hit £130m, netting £20 million in profit.

Later, amidst widespread pessimism about the future economy, e-commerce growth was dampened, and so was the online business of Joseph Joseph at the start of 2023. The company’s management, with no plans for slowing down, recognized the importance of delivery experience in e-commerce and decided to optimize the post-purchase journey to build better customer relationships, earn trust, and foster loyalty, aiming to propel the business to new heights that would mark a milestone in the company’s 20 years’ development.

Searching for the right solution for the multinational business

“At Joseph Joseph, we have country managers that lead different teams. Above all, we reached a consensus on the priority of an order tracking solution in place. It was time-consuming for tens of team leaders to work closely to put forward their concerns and formulate criteria. Hence, to accelerate the entire process, we chose to form an action group by involving several key directors. The action group used the established criteria as the touchstone for myriads of post-purchase solutions.” recollected Mark Dugdale, Director of eCommerce.

A tracking solution would be less than ideal if either customers’ post-purchase experience or the company’s supply chain operations were overlooked. That’s why Joseph Joseph insisted on a well-rounded tracking solution – all the following criteria that formed the “touchstone” should be met: 

• Split Shipments Tracking: Fascinated by attractive and useful designs, many Joseph Joseph’s customers tend to order multiple items at a single time. Bulky products need special handling, affecting both the courier choice and delivery time. Therefore, the desired tracking solution must clearly display package contents and provide access to tracking information of all split shipments in an order.
• Integration with Gorgias: Live chat is their go-to choice if customers are confused and need more information. For this reason, it’s necessary for the tracking solution to seamlessly work with Gorgias, the live chat app that Joseph Joseph’s customer service teams are using.
• Separate Access for Teams: Ideally, the order tracking solution should be an embedded Shopify app directly accessible in Shopify Admin. The settings for different country-specific sites should not affect one another to offer customers wonderful personalized experiences.
• Internal Exception Alerts: Delivery exceptions require special attention. The ideal order tracking solution should automatically notify the supply chain executive of any package returned to the sender, damaged, or lost during transit.
• CSV Report Export: Joseph Joseph’s team is extremely concerned about delays and needs to export tracking information for periodic reviews with the in-house supply chain management team and courier partners.

“We believed that the search was an important mission. The accomplishment would allow us to make informed decisions to vitalize supply chain operations and improve customer satisfaction.”

Yves Peeters, Chief Supply Chain Officer

The solution: ParcelPanel stood out in 2 months comparison

At the end of March 2023, Joseph Joseph’s action group added the ParcelPanel Order Tracking app to a test store and the primary store. However, the group members had to evaluate other solutions before actually testing ParcelPanel’s paid features. Notably, in mid-April, the UK store operations team took the initiative to try out every feature of different plans within 4 days. During this period, ParcelPanel’s customer support team was frequently consulted.

Late in May, the action group reached an agreement and decided to go all-in by adopting ParcelPanel as the order tracking solution for most of the company’s Shopify EU, US, DE, FR, and UK stores.

“In retrospect, we adopted a conservative approach and spent a long time on the project. That’s because we wished to deliver an on-brand experience at all touchpoints in the customer journey. With the pursuit of perfection in our DNA, we didn’t give up or make any compromises. We compared tens of tracking solutions in 2 months and settled on ParcelPanel because it excelled in all aspects and stood out in the competition.” 

Mark Dugdale, Director of eCommerce

The results: More efficient tracking, 2-day avg. shipping time & higher CSAT

“Thanks to ParcelPanel, we don’t need to monitor shipment statuses by ourselves. It informs us of delivery exceptions via email in real time and allows us to identify delays immediately. With ParcelPanel, we can focus on improving inventory management, warehouse inbound & outbound processes, and cooperation with couriers. The results are more than satisfying. We’ve managed to reduce the average shipping time to 2 days!” 

Yves Peeters, Chief Supply Chain Officer

“We’re glad to see the increased working efficiency and a higher customer satisfaction level after implementing ParcelPanel. With that said, our UK team has done a marvelous job.”

Joe Stalder, UK Country Manager

In the past 4 months, Joseph Joseph’s UK teams have used ParcelPanel to streamline order tracking and optimize supply chain operations. Their achievements include:

• 83% Tracking Efficiency Boost: With ParcelPanel’s order tracking automation, both the supply chain and customer service team get the sophistication they need, which greatly improves their productivity.
• 2-Day Average Shipping Time: Joseph Joseph UK mainly delivers products with Evri and DPD. Although it is specified on the delivery page on josephjoseph.com that shipping times depend on the shipping methods, actually, the UK supply chain team keeps the average shipping time within 2 days, as unforeseen exceptions are always attended to in time.
• 8% Increase in CSAT Score: Customers enjoy the convenient order tracking self-service on Joseph Joseph’s official website, where they can check split shipments, real-time shipment status, and package contents all in one place. Besides, 2-day delivery also makes shopping houseware worry-free.

The future: Improve post-purchase experiences in other countries with ParcelPanel

As eCommerce competition intensifies, 2023 is the year for working on customer experience and retention. Joseph Joseph UK has made a great leap forward. Hopefully, positive changes will be seen in other countries, and the brand will be better received worldwide.

“We’ve already verified how effective the implementation of ParcelPanel is with our primary Shopify store. Other country-specific teams would follow suit to elevate business operations for enhanced customer experience from October this year. Joseph Joseph offers brilliant kitchenware — if our product is the cake, the post-purchase experience we provide is the ‘icing’ on the cake. Our products delight people, so our services should be equally delightful.”

Mark Dugdale, Director of eCommerce