Accessories Retailer Uses New Order Management Technology to Accelerate Growth

Compression Garments Retailer Squeezes Double-Digit Growth Out of New Ecommerce Technology

Washington, DC – October 30, 2017 – BrightLife Direct, Inc. is the brain child of Kip Bright. It started with Kip, a marketer by trade, finding an opportunity in the world of compression socks. This category is considered medical equipment — compression socks are a necessary treatment for people with a variety of ailments, including varicose veins, lymphedema and venous insufficiency.

As a medical device, insurance reimbursements propped up pricing to levels too high for many of the uninsured. Kip saw an opportunity to develop a more affordable private label brand for this chronically underserved market.

And the Allegro brand of compression stockings was born.

Soon thereafter, BrightLife Direct was born. BrightLife is an ecommerce business dedicated to making compression socks and therapies, delivered direct-to-consumer, with exceptional customer service at low prices. They sell name brands as well as their own private label brand. And they’ve continued to grow every year since inception, both revenue and employees. They bring a deep passion to customer service – as Kip puts it, “Compression socks really DO help. If a customer’s first pair of stockings is binding or too tight, we’ll try different sizes or styles until we find them the perfect fit. Our first goal is to make the customer want a second pair.”

Growing Pains

Like most growing retailers, the commerce technology that helped them grow for their first 12 years eventually grew tired.

As BrightLife Direct’s business expanded, customer service and fulfillment challenges increased. Their customer service team needed faster access to telephone and website orders. They also needed the ability to quickly modify orders, process returns, refunds, and exchanges, and manage the increase in inventory, and orders going out the door.

BrightLife Direct was bursting at the seams with separate systems for managing orders and inventory, the ecommerce website, and reporting. They were managing product content for thousands of SKUs with spreadsheets, entering the same information into multiple systems. Errors were increasing, productivity was declining, and their existing technology was becoming a hindrance instead of an enabler.

The New World of Unified Commerce

As a high growth apparel and accessories retailer, they needed a scalable solution that could support fast growth and simplify operations.

Instead of manually importing product information, they needed a Product Information Management (PIM) system supporting ecommerce, the contact center and eventually marketplaces.

Like other business owners, they needed powerful reporting and business intelligence. To make this all happen, BrightLife needed to transform their disparate systems into one, unified commerce platform.

Enter Pulse Commerce

BrightLife Direct selected the Pulse Commerce Order Management System plus its native Ecommerce Solution in 2012. Pulse Commerce’s Platform includes a built-in product information management (PIM) solution which greatly simplified product catalog and content management, while restoring sanity to the purchasing, forecasting and inventory departments.

Pulse Commerce also delivered innovative customer-facing features that increased website conversions. For example, the Global Express Address Entry feature simplified shopping cart checkout for customers and for the call center staff, pre-emptively eliminating bad addresses and deliveries. BrightLife now had the modern ecommerce and order management features needed to offer group discounts to wholesale customers and offer creative retail coupons and promotions, all while protecting profit margins. Management was more at ease with Pulse Commerce’s enterprise security and PCI compliance capabilities, while marketing and procurement folks loved the in-depth reporting and powerful analytics capabilities built right within the platform.

Fast Double-Digit Growth and New Challenges Arrive

The benefits of switching to the Pulse Commerce platform were immediate, freeing up the BrightLife Direct team to spend more time selecting the right merchandise, helping customers choose the right products, and delivering orders to customers faster.

Sales increased by 55% and conversions increased 33%. All while back office productivity increased dramatically too.

The improvement in logistics, customer service and operations further freed up the merchant’s time to pursue new opportunities. BrightLife Direct started selling on Amazon.com, opened a new web storefront built on Magento, and partnered with a 3PL that was using NetSuite ERP. They needed their systems to adapt quickly to these changes and to their growing business needs. With the addition of both Amazon Marketplace and Magento Web Store sales channels, inventory allocation and management in real-time became much more complex, but the omni-channel features within the Pulse Commerce platform allowed for quick and seamless integration. All systems could now take advantage of the reliable and cutting-edge functionality. Pulse Commerce now acts as conductor, keeping this larger and more complex digital commerce orchestra in sync while supporting and enabling new and profitable growth for BrightLife Direct.

Throughout the past 17 years, BrightLife Direct has focused on helping customers find the right solution for their needs. Regarding their technology partner, Brita Ericson added, “Pulse Commerce is a lot like us. They really listened to us to understand our technology ailments, and they have delivered the perfect treatment. We’ve not only beaten our technology woes; we’ve turned our technology into a distinct competitive advantage.”