Table of Contents
** Minutes
Switching to ShipBob from a competing 3PL
Getting real-time status updates at a glance
Boosting conversion rates with faster shipping
Learn how pet accessory brand RIFRUF is reinventing canine footwear to create the world’s best dog shoe.
Customer Profile
Based in Queens, New York, RIFRUF is a dog shoe and accessory brand started by Peter Liu and Jeremy Yoon — two pet parents and footwear enthusiasts. Their thoughtfully designed and crafted products are aimed at both looking great and being great for your dog(s). RIFRUF’s philosophy is “if we wouldn’t wear it, neither should our dogs.”
Key metrics
- 2 ShipBob fulfilment centres
- 8x growth YoY
- 38.5% faster shipping than previous 3PL
About RIFRUF
Every parent wants what’s best for their child – even when their child is a dog. That’s what led Peter Liu to start RIFRUF.
Peter is the owner of a French Bulldog named Caesar. While walking around their neighborhood in New York City, Caesar suffered a paw injury after stepping on some broken glass on the sidewalk. When Peter took Caesar to the vet, they recommended he wear dog shoes.
After scouring the internet for a functional yet fashionable dog shoe, Peter came up short. There was nothing on the market that was trendy or well-made. Being a sneakerhead himself, Peter thought he could make improvements on the dog footwear industry. Peter looped in his friend (now business partner), Jeremy Yoon, who had a background in footwear design and they launched RIFRUF in January 2021 with the mission of creating a better dog shoe. And in fact, RIFRUF won the 2022 Pet Innovation Awards for Best Dog Accessory Product of the Year.
Since their launch, RIFRUF has grown and begun offering new products in the dog accessory vertical. Their goal is to offer products for dogs “from head to paw.”
Due to their growth, RIFRUF needed a fulfilment partner that was just as reliable as their dog shoes. We spoke with Peter to learn more about RIFRUF’s fulfilment journey and partnership with ShipBob.
Switching to ShipBob from a competing 3PL
As told to ShipBob by Peter Liu, Co-Founder of RIFRUF
When we started, we were individually packing orders on our own. Quickly we found that wasn’t sustainable. As we continued to grow, we knew we needed to look for a third-party logistics provider.
When we first outsourced our fulfilment, we used one of ShipBob’s competitors that also has their own dashboard. Initially we felt like the pricing was fair — especially for a new brand starting out — but we soon found that there were a lot of hidden fees. We also experienced a high loss rate, and responses from customer service were really slow when we needed things to be fixed or to get answers.
Overall, we had an unpleasant experience working with them. Eventually, we decided to go shopping for a new 3PL.
“In doing our research, it seemed that ShipBob filled in all of the gaps that we were experiencing with our previous 3PL. Since partnering with ShipBob, we’ve found that the fees are transparent, packages are getting lost less (which means we file less claims), and customer service is much more responsive and attentive. Plus, the shipping is actually faster!”
Peter Liu, Co-Founder of RIFRUF
Getting real-time status updates at a glance
In my experience, ShipBob is a lot more clear and transparent about what customers can expect compared to the other 3PL we used. ShipBob’s warehouse receiving process and documentation are really detailed. I like being able to see the SLAs so I can know when receiving will be fulfiled. ShipBob’s analytics dashboard is quite helpful and straightforward.
It’s really helpful to have that level of visibility so we don’t have to constantly email back and forth, asking when things will be completed. It saves a lot of time and helps set expectations appropriately.
Boosting conversion rates with faster shipping
We’ve recently done some website optimisation and targeted ads so it’s challenging to attribute our growth to just one aspect of the business, but our overall traffic, volume of orders, and conversion rate have steadily increased.
Without a doubt, a portion of that is due to increased shipping speeds we’re able to offer because of ShipBob — the average time to fulfil and the average time to send orders out has decreased from our last provider.
With our last 3PL, if our customers wanted free shipping, they had to have economy shipping and wait 5-8 days for delivery. Whereas with ShipBob, we can offer free shipping and customers receive their order in 3-5 days.
I believe part of our increased conversion rate is due to our customers seeing the option for faster shipping at checkout. ShipBob’s 2-Day Express ship option definitely helps this.
Shipping orders from hubs near our customers
With our last 3PL, we only had products in one fulfilment centre on the West Coast of the US, even though they have fulfilment centres in the US and abroad. As we grew and understood our customer base more, we knew we needed to be in multiple fulfilment centres across the country.
When we moved to ShipBob, we distributed our inventory for the first time. We have products in New Jersey and Nevada. Our customers are mostly in New York and California so distributing our inventory on both coasts makes sense for us.
Recently, our Merchant Success Manager, Himanchali, provided an overview of our past few months’ inventory distribution and found that around 20% of our orders would have been more economical if had they been shipped from a more central fulfilment centre. This was helpful, as we’re looking to streamline costs next year.
We have a lot of customers in Florida and Texas, so we have been considering branching into a more centralised fulfilment centre to take care of those areas.
Overall, we’re a lot happier with ShipBob than our last 3PL.
What’s next for RIFRUF
We want to be a holistic dogwear brand. We just launched a bunch of new accessories like raincoats, leashes, and harnesses, and sales for those have been going really well.
As for our strategy, we are looking into adding a few sales channels, including using ShipBob’s new automated FBA prep solution. We also may get started with Chewy and utilise ShipBob’s B2B solution for those orders. Luckily, ShipBob’s EDI capabilities will make omnichannel fulfilment easy for us to manage. Overall, our goal is to have more and more orders come through!
RIFRUF’s team at ShipBob
Mary Kate Durkin
Mary Kate is the Account Executive who helped bring RIFRUF onboard with ShipBob.
Manas Kakkar
Manas is the Implementation Specialist who helped RIFRUF get started with ShipBob.
Himanchali Rai
Himanchali is a ShipBob’s Merchant Success Specialist and helps support the RIFRUF team.
Get started with ShipBob
If ShipBob sounds like the right fulfilment partner for your business, request a quote to connect with our team.
