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Saving 40+ hours a month on subscription fulfilment
Getting a built-in operations team of 100+ as a small business
Being able to take time off while receiving proactive support
Learn how women’s health and supplement brand Elle Sera receives time back and stellar support by outsourcing subscription fulfilment to ShipBob.
Customer Profile
Elle Sera (French for “she will be”) is a Liverpool-based supplement brand on a mission to reclaim their hormones. Packed with five powerful, vegan-friendly nutrients, each golden pill is designed to balance mood, reduce stress and anxiety, and alleviate many of the symptoms of menopause. With a flexible monthly subscription program, Elle Sera empowers you to maintain wellness long-term and embrace your hormones.
About Elle Sera
When Elissa Corrigan ran her wellness retreats for women, she was struck by just how many participants were dealing with hormone imbalances.
She began to incorporate key, hormone-balancing ingredients into her retreats – until the pandemic hit. With no way to meet in person, Elissa decided to create her own supplement, and Elle Sera was born.
Since 2020, Elle Sera’s golden pill has become a staple for many women all over the world. We sat down with Kelly Bond, Elle Sera’s Operations Manager, to discuss how the brand leverages ShipBob to power their subscription fulfilment and achieve top-tier support.
Saving 40+ hours a month on subscription fulfilment
As told to ShipBob by Kelly Bond, Operations Manager at Elle Sera.
Prior to our partnering with ShipBob, our orders were processed manually. It was doable, but it wasn’t an effective use of time.
From the very first conversation with ShipBob’s team, I was sold. The sales rep was so passionate about ShipBob’s service quality and how they could help our brand scale, We are immensely passionate about the customer experience, so although we still continue to handle the first order each customer receives (leaving us time to personalise those a lot more), ShipBob fulfils every subsequent shipment from their fulfilment centre in the UK.
It’s been fantastic. It used to take me 2 hours a day to do the work that ShipBob does for me – that’s 40 hours a month that I have back now, thanks to ShipBob. And that’s only the time spent shipping orders. Factoring in the considerable time I’m saving by not picking and packing orders myself, I have so much more freedom to focus on other priorities.
“When you partner with ShipBob, it’s like you’ve got a member of staff that never takes a day off sick, that’s never on holiday. They’re constantly able to send something out (even if I’m not in the office), and they always get stuff done. It’s the kind of luxury we can’t afford on our own, but ShipBob makes it efficient and affordable to achieve.”
Kelly Bond, Operations Manager at Elle Sera
Even though ShipBob is fulfilling our orders, I still get visibility into and control of the process with what they’re doing. Wherever I am in the world, I can log in to my ShipBob dashboard and know exactly what’s going on with our orders. ShipBob is dependable, so I can trust that a customer will get their product within two days, even if I’m not in the office or even near the vicinity. If an issue does pop up, like a missing order, I can just log on to ShipBob, repeat that order, and have it sent out to them in a flash. It’s just handy.
Because subscription fulfilment with ShipBob has been such a time-saver, we’ve now been able to explore and trial ShipBob controlling our international orders – we’ve even kitted a ton of boxes for ahead of time, so they can trial this in the coming weeks.
Getting a built-in operations team of 100+ as a small business
When we first started with ShipBob, we were very small, so we didn’t have deep pockets. Like a lot of ecommerce brands in the health and beauty space, we were at a place where paying an extra pound or so per order for fulfilment was a big deal – but ShipBob’s service has absolutely been worth it.
“With ShipBob as our partner, it’s like we get hundreds more people on our team, who are all supporting us and freeing up time by managing fulfilment for us.”
Kelly Bond, Operations Manager at Elle Sera
The fulfilment so accurate – we’ve only ever had a single packing mistake in 10 months with ShipBob! (I assumed it was an error of mine at first, because ShipBob’s accuracy has been so consistent.) Funny enough, our ShipBob account manager was with me the day the customer emailed to tell me of their empty envelope, so we shared a laugh about it!
ShipBob has come through for us at key moments, and has been so reliable and trustworthy when issues come up. ShipBob’s service is like a form of insurance to me – every order is fully covered, fully trackable, and I know that ShipBob will help me resolve any problems, and won’t leave me on the hook for unforeseen costs when I’m not at fault.
“For me, the cost of fulfilment is completely outweighed by the level of service and the commitment that ShipBob shows to merchants. Even if I were spending my own personal money, I would pay double – the fulfilment quality and support are that good.”
Kelly Bond, Operations Manager at Elle Sera
In the time that we’ve been with ShipBob, we’ve grown significantly – our subscriber base has increased substantially, overall sales and international sales are up, and we’re getting good figures in now. But we remember what it’s like to operate on a smaller scale, so I’m constantly telling growing brands how game-changing it is to outsource to an expert fulfilment partner like ShipBob. Everyone talks about keeping fulfilment in-house, but it’s absolutely worth the leap of faith – ShipBob has so much to offer. It’s an investment, yes, but it’s an investment that will ultimately help you scale.
Being able to take time off while receiving proactive support
I’m a big believer in raving about really good quality service – especially when it comes to customer support. At Elle Sera, we hold ourselves to an extremely high standard for customer support, and we expect the same from our partners.
“The support we’ve received from ShipBob has been nothing short of exceptional. Our Account Manager, Rachel, has gone above and beyond the call of duty. We talk practically every day, and she’s even taken the time to meet me in person to help out during our busiest month of the year! She thinks of our customers as her customers – a rare find that is incredibly appreciated.”
Kelly Bond, Operations Manager at Elle Sera
The same can be said of everyone on the ShipBob team, down to the people picking and packing orders in the fulfilment centre. I remember a while ago, we were launching a gift as part of our subscription. I very rarely take time away from work, but with everything all set, I decided to take the weekend off and not think about work. That Saturday (the day of the launch), I got a call from one of ShipBob’s fulfilment centre associates telling me that for some reason, a fulfilment rule in the system had not been turned on.
I was about to panic, but she immediately said to me, “I knew you wouldn’t want to worry about work this weekend, so I’ve taken the liberty of fixing the problem for you. Everything’s processing fine now, and all the orders are going out the right way. I just wanted to let you know. I hope that’s okay!”
It was more than okay; it was amazing! It’s things like that, that set ShipBob’s support apart on another level. To not only pinpoint the issue right away but understand the impact it would have on me personally, and take the initiative to fix it, no questions asked – that proactivity is what makes ShipBob a truly fantastic partner and helps me trust that they have everything under control.
What’s next for Elle Sera
Our new magnesium supplement is currently being manufactured and will be ready for ShipBob to send out to customers in a few months. It’s great for increasing energy, improving sleep, and managing hot flashes, so we’re confident our ladies will love it!
We’ve also been shortlisted for a few different awards in the health and beauty space, including Menopause Product of the Year and the Marie Claire Sustainability Award (because everything we make is recyclable or biodegradable).
In terms of growth, we’re planning on leveraging ShipBob’s global fulfilment network to keep expanding into new countries. America is next on our list, and we’re also looking to use their fulfilment centres in Europe to cut transit times for customers outside of the UK. The sky is the limit for Elle Sera – especially with the support of a partner like ShipBob!
Elle Sera’s team at ShipBob
Jerod Jones
Jerod is the Account Executive who helped Elle Sera get started with ShipBob.
Jordan Altamuro
Jordan is the Implementation Consultant who onboarded Elle Sera to ShipBob.
Rachel Parkinson
Rachel is the Merchant Success Manager at ShipBob who supports Elle Sera.
Get started with ShipBob
Want to improve your ecommerce fulfilment strategy and scale your business? Discover if ShipBob is the right fit for your brand and request a fulfilment quote below.
