Background
Nutrition Faktory launched as a brick-and-mortar retailer in the US and grew quickly, opening 12 stores in just 18 months. As they moved into franchising, SparkLayer helped them unlock entirely new customer bases.
The challenge
Nutrition Faktory had ambitious plans to scale and needed a tool that would support their growth, not hold it back. They had explored other platforms but found them lacking core B2B features, such as showing prices at cost rather than retail.
“One of our challenges early on was trying to figure out a system for our franchisees. We worked through a lot of different tools that weren't great”, Mike Bires, Founder and CEO.
Manual order processing had pushed the team to capacity, with their existing setup demanding more time than they could reasonably manage. “It got to a point where we didn’t think we’d be able to serve some of our customers because it was taking so much time, and it wasn’t sustainable. It was getting to a point where we couldn’t manage incoming orders”, Mike Bires.
B2B orders were being handled manually, sometimes containing over 1,000 line items. This led to excessive admin and a higher chance of mistakes, taking key team members away from work that genuinely drove growth.
“When you’re manually going through a thousand items per order, and it doesn’t match up, it causes a lot of problems - trying to comb through a lot of orders like that is a hassle. Add in checking the prices and discounts are correct every single time, and we just lost so much time”, Mike Bires.
The business works with a range of suppliers, as well as independent buyers like gyms and VIP retail customers, and needed a way to manage their various price lists. Each customer segment gets a different B2B price to reflect their order history and relationship with the business. They also had to manage different payment methods across customer segments, adding another layer of complexity to their back-end setup.
To improve operational efficiency, Nutrition Faktory needed clearer controls around profit thresholds, especially for pallet shipments. They also needed shipping rules to be automated rather than manually managed.
The solution
CSV upload functionality has been transformative for Nutrition Faktory, boosting satisfaction for franchisees and buyers ordering through the site.
“It was such a nightmare to create an order and then have to go and pick products off the website, where SparkLayer now allows us to import an Excel spreadsheet. Our franchisees love that it immediately populates - they’ve been asking for that forever!”, Mike Bires.
The business is now able to offer an intuitive, familiar shopping style that delivers personalisation at every step of the journey.
“We wanted franchisees to be able to hop into our website, get what they need, and have it come out the back-end like it would any other order. We really struggled with finding other tools online that could accomplish that.
Buyers can now navigate our website like a retail consumer, and it gives them a great experience”, Mike Bires. The team have used SparkLayer’s Customer Group tool to set bespoke pricing and discounts for each buyer segment, from franchisees and gyms to VIP customers. They’ve also specified payment methods for each customer type, giving them greater control over cash flow and forecasting.
The results
They onboarded with SparkLayer in record time, and the platform’s intuitive navigation has been a major time saver for both staff and customers. “It’s been the best onboarding experience, and the SparkLayer team go above and beyond - they’re incredibly responsive and reply to emails within minutes. Our Vice President was blown away with how fast and easy it is to use”, Mike Bires.
By eliminating the need for manual order processing, SparkLayer has enabled the team to focus on more valuable tasks, resulting in a 75% reduction in weekly manual workload.
This additional time has allowed the business to focus on adding new brands to their website and serving a larger, more diverse customer base. Since implementing SparkLayer, they’ve seen exceptional B2B sales, with over 900% revenue growth through their wholesale channel each month.
“SparkLayer allowed us to grow our business - to offer everything we wanted to but couldn’t before. The trifecta that primarily led us to try SparkLayer was working off cost instead of retail pricing, the ease of setting different price levels, and the simplicity of different payment terms.
Not only did SparkLayer help me do things, but they also taught me how to do it myself. Every tool we used in the past, I spent so much time emailing support because something was broken - and we’ve never had anything break with SparkLayer.” ~ Mike Bires, Founder and CEO
Explore more
To learn more about Nutrition Faktory, visit their website.
To see how SparkLayer works with Shopify, you can explore via the links below: