- With an average of over 6,000 orders per week, oral care brand MySweetSmile needed a 3PL to support its geographic expansion.
- After success in the US, the company switched its order fulfilment in the UK to MCF as well.
- MySweetSmile saw a 43% improvement in delivery speeds, while reducing costs by 8%.
The practice of dental care first gained widespread popularity in the 1950s, with the debut of fluoride in toothpaste. Now, with continued dental innovation, the focus is no longer just on brushing teeth. Consumers across the globe are taking a deep interest in their oral hygiene, with products spanning toothbrushes, toothpastes, and whiteners. The global oral care market was valued at over US$33 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach a value of over US$51 billion by 2030 by registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 5%. Shayan Sharifi, Managing Director of MySweetSmile, recognised this opportunity after his own experience as a consumer of dental products.
Sharifi was in search of a teeth whitening solution, but the existing offerings caused him to experience tooth sensitivity. So he decided to create his own product. Working with experts in the dentistry space, he developed teeth whitening powder that works to remove stains without using harsh, abrasive ingredients. In 2020, he launched MySweetSmile in the UK as an oral care brand with a mission to help others enjoy dental hygiene without discomfort.
Sharifi started selling on a direct-to-consumer (D2C) website powered by Shopify and MySweetSmile became an instant hit with shoppers. The company grew rapidly as Sharifi expanded onto Amazon.co.uk, and began using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) to pick, pack, and ship his orders. Sharifi developed three additional general oral care products and even won the ‘Best Teeth Whitening Product of 2023' title by The Independent. MySweetSmile customers were thrilled to be able to enjoy high quality whitening and tooth cleaning from the comfort of their own home.
Next, Sharifi set his sights on bringing MySweetSmile to the US, but he knew he needed support from a third-party logistics (3PL) provider. His products are formulated by dental labs in the UK, and then manufactured in China. The items are then shipped to the UK, where they are stored or sent to Amazon Fulfilment Centres. Sharifi is also beginning to leverage Amazon Global Logistics, which ships inventory directly to Amazon Fulfilment Centres from China. With a global supply chain, having a 3PL to support the ecommerce company’s geographic expansion would be critical to its success.
The search for a 3PL in the US began, but Sharifi found that many of the providers had complicated pricing structures or hidden fees, like packaging or fuel surcharges, or their fulfilment times were not fast enough. On top of that, the company started experiencing delays with their existing UK-based 3PL.
Sharifi was seeking a global 3PL that could help him navigate order fulfilment challenges associated with a growing business by offering:
- Fast order fulfilment for its sales channels: Sharifi wanted to provide a consistently positive shopping experience on all his company’s online sales channels, especially when it came to fast delivery speeds.
- Inventory management support: MySweetSmile was struggling with high out of stock rates, causing the company to miss out on potential revenue and necessitating costly one-off shipments between storage facilities. Sharifi was aiming to reduce operating costs by avoiding expensive inventory mistakes.
- Scalable operations: A fast-growing ecommerce business that is eager to expand across multiple new markets and channels, MySweetSmile needed a 3PL that had a robust global logistics network to support the company’s growth.
- Transparent pricing: Sharifi wanted a 3PL provider that offered transparent, predictable pricing so he could easily get a handle on the company’s logistics costs.
“When I was looking for a 3PL provider, I was surprised by how many providers had additional fees for their services. It was extremely difficult to calculate and compare variable costs. I wanted a 3PL that could operate quickly, inexpensively, and reliably,” explained Sharifi.
In 2022, Sharifi decided to start utilising Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfilment (MCF) as MySweetSmile’s 3PL in the US. He chose MCF because MCF offers:
- Fast fulfilment services: Ecommerce businesses can use MCF to deliver orders rapidly – with click-to-delivery speeds as fast as 2 days – across all their sales channels.
- Pooled inventory: By using MCF, sellers can consolidate their stock into a single pool to be used to fulfil both on-Amazon orders (with FBA) and off-Amazon orders (with MCF). In fact, UK sellers who use both MCF and FBA are able to increase their Amazon.co.uk sales revenue by an average of 26.4%*.
- A global fulfilment network: MCF give companies access to Amazon’s fulfilment network, which has 77 fulfilment centres in the UK and EU and over 200 globally.
- A simple pricing system: With MCF, ecommerce businesses only pay for fulfilment and storage (with one fee for pick, pack, and ship).
- 100+ state-of-the-art integrations: MCF offers both prebuilt and custom integration options to automate and streamline the order fulfilment process, dramatically reducing the time and effort it takes to manually manage logistics operations.
*Based on trailing twelve-month sales revenue for UK Amazon sellers who used FBA and started using MCF from December 2022 to April 2023, versus those who only used FBA, during the same time period.
WebBee is a great, affordable integration for ecommerce businesses. It imports tens of thousands of Shopify orders for us each month. We wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of volume manually. Since we integrated with MCF, the whole fulfilment process is effortless.
“Since MySweetSmile is based in the UK, my top priority was finding a 3PL I could trust to help manage my US operations,” said Sharifi, “I discovered MCF, which is easy to use and allows me to give my customers the Amazon fulfilment experience – and this is a huge benefit for my business.”
MySweetSmile connected its Shopify website with MCF using WebBee. Now, orders are automatically imported from Shopify to MCF for fulfilment, and tracking information is communicated back to MySweetSmile’s customers.
Sharifi stated, “WebBee is a great, affordable integration for ecommerce businesses. It imports tens of thousands of Shopify orders for us each month. We wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of volume manually. Since we integrated with MCF, the whole fulfilment process is effortless.”
MySweetSmile started using MCF in the US beginning in April 2022, and then quickly transitioned fulfilment for its off-Amazon orders in the UK to MCF as well. Now, the retailer – which receives over 6,000 orders a week on average – uses Amazon’s 3PL fulfilment services (MCF and FBA) for all of its fulfilment needs. Since Sharifi and his team started using MCF, they have realised a number of business benefits, including:
- Speedy fulfilment that delights customers: MySweetSmile enjoys an average click-to-delivery speed of 1.7 days with MCF, which is 43% quicker than its previous 3PL.
- Optimised inventory management: Sharifi and team consolidated their stock with Amazon – so they can tap into the company’s Amazon inventory pool to fulfil all of their online orders. MySweetSmile no longer needs to manage multiple inventory sources, minimising the company’s risk of going out of stock.
- Improved bottom-line: With the help of MCF, MySweetSmile streamlined its inventory management and in turn, reduced its operating costs by 8%.
- Flexibility during seasonal surges: MySweetSmile occasionally experiences large spikes in orders, but it’s able to maintain a first-class customer experience with MCF handling the order fulfilment.
In the future, Sharifi is interested in expanding MySweetSmile into new markets like the EU. MCF will continue to play a key role in its operations, fulfilling customer orders across its off-Amazon sales channels.
“I highly recommend MCF for businesses selling in more than one country. I spent too much time and money managing my inventory, and was constantly running out of stock. I was thrilled to start using MCF for my order fulfilment, since inventory mistakes are so costly. Leveraging a single pool of inventory means I don’t have to stress about keeping my products available across my sales channels. Now, I can focus on expanding my business to new geographies. MCF has been a crucial part in MySweetSmile’s success.”
