Shopify App Store is full of useful applications for independent sellers. Full Fill All Orders Perfectly is the latest addition to the enormous app store that makes life easier for Shopify merchants. Developed by the co-founders of the baby brand Lalo, the new app aims to help merchants manage Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) and reduce inefficiency on the part of third-party logistics (3PL).
The tool connects the inventory of the online store with their 3PLs, making it much easier to implement custom changes without affecting individual standard operating procedures. On the Shopify App Store, Full Fill claims to be a “one-stop application” for merchants to “manage their SKUs to improve the shopping experience and operational efficiency while reducing time and money spent on unnecessary order processing hiccups and day-to-day management.”
Full Fill has helped us seamlessly connect our Shopify store to our WMS to automate the fulfillment flow. The interface is simple and straightforward to use which makes it easy to quickly setup new workflows.
{r.e.m. beauty}
The service also helps them solve “kitting and bundling issues and gives your 3PL exactly what they need to fulfill your orders perfectly”.
Birth of an Idea
According to modernretail.co, the developers came up with the idea of the app when Lalo was searching for a 3PL itself. launched in 2019, Lalo is a baby and toddler products website. The packaging for the delicate products causes boxes to be bigger for delivery. It creates a hassle at times, Lalo and Full Fill co-founder Michael Wieder claims.
“We had very unique ways we fulfilled products. We looked into different solutions and what we could find off the shelf didn’t fit the need,” Wieder added. The aim was to reduce carbon footprints and increase profit margins with consolidated packaging and efficient logistics.
Another co-founder of Lalo and Full Fill app, Greg Davidson roped in e-commerce consultant Leeor Cohen to build an internal solution. Cohen had earlier worked with brands like Bonobos and Coterie. The plan worked well and the trio developed Full Fill All Orders Perfectly not only for Lalo’s personal needs but for all merchants based on Shopify.
“Look, this should work with more brands than Lalo,” said Wieder.
It is now available at a base price of $250/month with a seven-day free trial on the Shopify App Store. The app also comes in two advanced plans — GROWTH for $500/month and ELITE for $1,250/month.
User Experience
“We have been using the beta version of Full Fill for more than 10 months, and are extremely satisfied with both the tech and the entire support team. Full Fill All Orders Perfectly has truly lived up to its name! We have been able to optimize our processes when it comes to free gift with purchase, bundling, virtual multipack SKUs, and product consolidation/deconsolidation,” Lalo states in the app review.
The company adds: “Full Fill has also been able to reduce the total number of packages shipped by using a product weighted logic to maximize the fill rate of each shipping carton. Great job, Full Fill team!”
Other than Lalo, two more online stores, both from the United States, have used the Full Fill app for logistical operations. “Full Fill has solved many problems we previously faced with fulfillment within a few days of being live. It has unlocked capabilities we previously did not have working with two different 3PL partners that operate on different systems. We’ve tested multiple more expensive OMS / IMS that did not offer exactly what we needed before moving forward with FullFill,” states Canopy after using Full Fill All Orders Perfectly for three days.
Cosmetic company {r.e.m. beauty} wrote in its review: “Full Fill has helped us seamlessly connect our Shopify store to our WMS to automate the fulfillment flow. The interface is simple and straightforward to use which makes it easy to quickly setup new workflows!”
App Functionality
The three developers take pride in the app functionality to create workflows for warehouses and 3PLs. Cohen and his team of developers bootstrap the app development by slowly offering the beta version to other brands based on Shopify.
According to Wieder, the Full Fill app comes for other brands as “a no-code environment to unlock the potential of your marketing, merchandising and CX without creating any complications or headaches on fulfillment.”
Developer’s Challenges
That doesn’t mean making the app was easy for the trio. Cohen experienced pressure from the marketing teams for constant changes. However, operations teams resolved the biggest problems for the developers. “Digital product people are fighting between the two sides of wanting to keep a roadmap while keeping a site functioning,” he said.
Cohen adds that fulfillment is not an easy operation for merchants. The app aimed to change the workflow set by 3PLs to make it accessible for users without either coding or logistics backgrounds. “It starts with your inventory first,” he said.
“Then it’s what you want to do [with it],” Cohen added, hinting at the constant updates to orders or changes to shipping.
Full Fill’s earliest user was Canopy, which sells humidifiers. Apart from the packaging challenge, the app also had to fix logistics with diffuser subscription plans changing every quarter. “It’s very difficult to swap out a product every three months. Working with any operator. [after] 10 or 15 minutes of me showing them Full Fill, I think they’ll see three or four uses cases,” Cohen said.
Current Market Trends
The software business is at its peak right now, while fundraising for DTC brands gets tougher than ever. However, Wieder claimed that his company’s goal is not to just make money with the Full Fill app but also to produce favourable results for B2C businesses.
“I think we understood the customer pain point — the B-to-C pain point. By building this for all brands, it eliminates all the hurdles that brands usually have to jump through,” he said.
According to e-commerce agency TaskHusky founder Zachary McClung, it is wise for developers to create software offering these types of services. “If you have a nice product and you know what the problem is, it makes a lot of sense to roll out an app or B-to-B play on it. When you personally understand a problem you are usually the best person to solve it,” he said.
However, Wieder believes his software is not just for DTC brands. “We created it because it was a big need for Lalo. We were able to unearth this through Lalo, but it wasn’t created for Lalo,” he concluded, emphasizing the company’s priority.
