BILLY Footwear

The Company: About BILLY Footwear

BILLY Footwear was founded by Billy Price and Darin Donaldson in 2015 to create functional shoes based on the concept of Universal Design. After an accident in his teens that broke his neck, Billy Price wanted to create a company that would not only help him overcome his personal challenge of putting his shoes on and taking them off but one that could increase the quality of life for many others. BILLY shoes have unobstructed entry — meaning one can simply set one’s foot onto the shoe bed and then zip around the upper to secure it instead of tying the laces. This unobstructed entry makes the shoes accessible to people with mobility challenges and more convenient for everyone.

The Situation: Inventory Management

BILLY Footwear is sold through multiple channels, including big-boxretailers like Nordstrom and Macy’s, marketplaces like Amazon and Zappos, as well as their own eCommerce store and smaller retail dealers. Delivering products through all of these retail channels was a challenge that prompted the team to look into a more robust fulfillment solution.

From 2018 to 2019, BILLY Footwear saw a 260% increase in sales growth. Managing their inventory was becoming a bigger challenge as the company grew because both retail partners and direct customers were all pulling from the same inventory count. To support and manage its growth, the BILLY Footwear team needed a technology stack with scalable solutions to better streamline its accounting, inventory management, and shipping processes.

The Solution: OptiPro ERP

Billy says his team chose SAP Business One as their ERP (business management) platform to meet three main requirements: inventory management, accounting, and a better 3PL solution. Previous 3PLs were mismanaging orders from big retailers. Billy says: ​“Through the integration of this ERP system, we got connected with a better vendor… everything funnels into this central hub”. Through the integration of SAP Business One and a new 3PL, BILLY Footwear now spends less time navigating B2B orders and inventory inconsistencies.

In order to create a unified view of their business with an ERP as their central hub, Billy sought help from OptiProERP. OptiProERP is a complete business management (ERP) solution for retail/eCommerce, distribution, and manufacturing on SAP Business One. It helps small and midsize companies better manage, automate, and scale their backend processes from order to fulfillment and improves their omnichannelcustomer experience with a single world-class system and data asset.

OptiProERP seamlessly connected to ShipStation, eCommerce solutions, and EDI integrations, allowing BILLY Footwear to streamline and automate processes from order to fulfillment more easily and efficiently with less manual work.

ShipStation was the ingredient that really made the scaling of BILLY Footwear’s B2C business manageable. The integration of OptiProERP with SAP Business One, ShipStation and Shopify allows Billy’s team to view everything they need in one spot. This has given relief to his fulfillment team: ​“By having it the way it’s set up right now, it allows our fulfillment team to not really think. Because every order they’re fulfilling, they’re fulfilling it the exact same way — even if it’s business to business or business to customer.” BILLY Footwear manages all of its fulfillment through ShipStation.

The Results: OptiPro ERP Implementation Benefits

ShipStation has allowed the BILLY Footwear team to process more orders each day while improving customer satisfaction. Scan to verify ensures that the right products are in the right box and shipped to the right customer. Simplifying shipping allows Billy and his team to focus on growing other sectors of their business. Billy hopes the mission of inclusivity and convenience will help BILLY Footwear continue to grow.

The integrated solution between OptiProERP, SAP Business One, and ShipStation alleviates the complexities of Billy’s fulfillment process and will allow for more scalable growth in the future.