QUICK READ:
- Ledge Lounger sells in-pool and outdoor furniture, accessories, floats, and games.
- Using QuickBooks and Salesforce prevented Ledge Lounger from gleaning key Customer insights.
- The team now boasts faster Customer service and more insights on profitability by sales channel.
- Ledge Lounger has also used NetSuite automation to reduce its FTE requirements by 12%.
- By using NetSuite to plan production runs according to regional demand, the company saves $500,000 annually compared to its previous processes.
About Ledge Lounger
Ledge Lounger manufactures and sells in-pool and outdoor furniture, accessories, floats, and games. The company’s most recognizable product, the Signature Chaise, is meant for use on shallow pool ledges. It’s made from best-in-class outdoor materials that can withstand harsh pool chemicals and is color-stabilized to retain its hue after as many as 20,000 hours of direct sunlight.
Headquartered in Katy, Texas, Ledge Lounger operates five warehouses and will soon open a sixth. The largest share of its market is the United States, but it also sells globally — to regions including Australia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe — through multiple B2B and D2C channels. Ledge Lounger sees orders from about 1,600 Customers per week between its wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels.
High-quality products and consistent Customer satisfaction have fueled Ledge Lounger’s growth, as have impressive marketing efforts: Ledge Lounger’s products can be seen at 5-star resorts worldwide, as well as in the homes of high-profile celebrities and influencers. The company recently collaborated with Gray Malin and Jason Derulo, and it has been featured on HGTV’s Pool Kings and in Design Journal as a Good Design award winner. The company’s revenue has doubled year-over-year in most years.
A Desire to Scale
Ledge Lounger previously used QuickBooks for financials and Salesforce for Customer relationship management (CRM). The company began vetting ERP systems in 2018, hoping to limit labor costs and find a single business management solution that would accommodate any amount of future growth.
Ledge Lounger was especially interested in tying together financial management, CRM, and Customer support functions in an ERP system. Attempting to get Customer insights by piecing data together from QuickBooks and Salesforce required too much manual work, said Chief Operating Officer Dylan Schrader. The team needed a system that would track real-time data on customer interactions and sales, then accommodate detailed analysis.
“Tying records from QuickBooks to our Salesforce data was laborious. That’s one of the many reasons we wanted an all-in-one platform like NetSuite.”
The 15, 10, 5 Approach
When evaluating ERP systems, Ledge Lounger used a “15, 10, 5” approach, as it does when making all software purchasing decisions. First, the team conducts general research on 15 software vendors to get a broad view of products available in the market. Then, it builds out a detailed list of requirements for the next three to five years and requests product demos from 10 vendors. Finally, the team selects five serious contenders.
Ledge Lounger’s in-pool and outdoor furniture appears in backyards and five-star resorts worldwide.
Ledge Lounger considered staying with QuickBooks and adding multiple “bolt-on” solutions. It also considered Epicor’s manufacturing solution. But in the end, NetSuite emerged as Ledge Lounger’s choice thanks to its combined strengths in order management, CRM , and manufacturing , as well as its support services . NetSuite would also require fewer personnel resources than managing QuickBooks and multiple bolt-ons, said Schrader. Since switching to NetSuite, Ledge Lounger has reduced its FTE requirements by 12%.
“We made the leap to NetSuite because it’s a scalable system and its efficiencies meant that we wouldn’t have to make certain hires.”
Ledge Lounger’s Benefits of Moving to NetSuite
Detailed reporting: When onboarding partners in 2021, the team was impressed with how easy it was to tailor the way data was extracted from NetSuite. For example, they could easily add fields in order to compare potential outcomes at a more granular level during scenario analysis . NetSuite reporting has made Ledge Lounger a more data-driven operation internally as well. For example, in its wholesale channels, a new salesperson can analyze data from all prior transactions with a given Customer to quickly determine the “type” of Customer — whether they’re high- or low-maintenance, a big spender or cautious. With often limited time, the salesperson can choose which Customers to call based on potential returns for the business.
Top-tier Customer service: For Ledge Lounger, like many businesses selling direct-to-consumer, D2C fulfillment time has grown more important as marketplaces like Amazon shape consumer expectations. Given its high-end products, Ledge Lounger prioritizes addressing these Customers’ issues quickly to prevent buyer’s remorse. NetSuite helps the team dig to the root cause of any issues that pose a threat to the Customer experience. And if Customers report issues, Ledge Lounger uses NetSuite to resolve the problem in time for Customers to use their new furniture by the weekend — an unofficial marker of Customer-support success in a business built around poolside hangouts.
Consistent cash flow: Ledge Lounger uses Customer classifications in NetSuite to track profitability by lead source: outbound marketing campaigns, website visits, online chat, and more. The team uses these insights to make smart decisions about which wholesale Customers to engage, products to manufacture, and marketing campaigns to push. Amid a market slowdown last year, for example, Ledge Lounger analyzed purchase histories and reduced its inventory orders to more precisely match predicted demand, boosting cash flow.
As Ledge Lounger introduces products, like its Signature Slide, NetSuite handles order management.
Capacity to handle high demand: Ledge Lounger’s marketing campaigns and promotions deliver impressive results, and traffic in peak season can reach 150% over non-peak months. NetSuite can process any corresponding order increase; that jump in transaction volume doesn’t encumber Ledge Lounger’s internal processes.
Optimized production and fulfillment: Ledge Lounger uses NetSuite to inform decisions about where to manufacture individual SKUs based on regional demand, for a savings of $500,000 each year compared to its previous process. When Customers place orders, NetSuite Order Management automatically routes orders for fulfillment at the lowest cost based on shipping lanes, zip codes, and modes of transport. The system makes it easy for Ledge Lounger to track items from order to delivery, no matter which sales channel they come from. NetSuite data also empowers Ledge Lounger when it comes to renegotiating deals with shipping partners; the team enters those discussions with as much knowledge about efficient and cost-effective shipping practices as the vendors have, said Schrader.
“NetSuite Order Management has been incredibly valuable in answering critical questions like ‘How do we reduce our outbound and inbound shipping costs?’ That’s been huge for us in the past 18 months.”
Looking Ahead
Ledge Lounger is focused on fine-tuning operations for efficiency and making hires in departments including sales and marketing. Meanwhile, the team will continue using NetSuite to manage a growing breadth of functions as the business scales, Schrader said.
“I don’t know of another ERP that can manage the business end-to-end, from marketing campaigns all the way down to Customer support cases. When we ask, ‘Hey, can NetSuite do this?,’ it’s almost a universal yes.”
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