How Made.com uses Flexport to manage a global supplier network from its U.K. headquarters

Overview

Made.com is a U.K.-based retailer, selling furniture and housewares to clients throughout Europe on its e-commerce platform. Upending the traditional furniture retailer model, Made employs a dynamic supply chain to offer high-quality goods at affordable rates.

Challenges

Made partners closely with a network of designers and factories to produce its goods. With its entire logistics team based in its London headquarters, visibility and communication with its dozens of suppliers in Asia had become challenging as the company grew.

Solutions

With Flexport, Made’s been able to onboard its suppliers onto the platform directly, providing them a shared workspace to collaborate, streamlined shipment-level communication, and reporting and analytics to bring accountability to their supplier relationships.

Getting started with Flexport

As Made’s International Shipping and Transport Manager, Ghislain Liabeuf is responsible for managing all things freight for the company. He and his team were first made aware of Flexport through a member of Made’s IT team, who was excited about the prospect of a freight forwarder with modern software capabilities. “We’re a young, modern company, and definitely were drawn to the idea of a modern company like us to help manage our supply chain,” says Liabeuf.

After meeting with Flexport, and seeing the platform, Made decided to evaluate Flexport by setting up some trial shipments. “We started by allocating a few suppliers and giving Flexport a few months to prove themselves,” says Liabeuf. “Everything went really well during the trial, and the user interface made it easy for us to see what was happening at each step. After two months of getting a feel for the platform, we decided to move over more of our volume to Flexport.”

Data-informed operations

Among the key differentiators Made considered when making the switch, was easy access to the data it needs to run its supply chain. While there were ample software tools available to handle the needs of Made’s sales, marketing, and design teams, the same wasn’t true for freight and logistics.

“The tools available prior just didn’t really fit in with how we run our business,” says Liabeuf.

“With Flexport, we’re able to really see the details to measure our supplier performance. Cargo ready dates, booking dates, confirming reasons for delays and trends. It’s all there, which helps us know both what’s happening and why it’s happening.”

Building the logistics platform of the future

Since beginning to work with Flexport in 2016, Made’s been able to not only use the platform, but have a hand in helping to shape future development. “It’s great to be able to talk to the team building the product and help inform them as to ways it can work better for us,” says Liabeuf. “Being able to provide feedback, and knowing that it’s being worked on, makes you feel good about the direction things are heading.”