One of the biggest benefits of upgrading to Unleashed is the flexibility you get: from the software itself, our range of integrations and the B2B Store. So we were excited to hear about how one of our customers, Pinjarra Bakery, took the flexibility they achieved with Unleashed one step further by using the B2B Store in an innovative way.
Here’s their story.
I'm Daniel Pantaleo, one of the owners of the world-famous Pinjarra Bakery located in Pinjarra, Western Australia.
A Pinjarra Bakery
We fell into the bakery business by accident about 22 years ago. Today, we employ about 70 people all up, but we're still a family business. My mum, dad, brother, sister and myself are all involved, and we're all passionate about the business we've created and grown.
We believe we're in the business of putting a smile on our customers’ faces. It’s an approach that’s won us lots of national awards over the years. But more importantly, it’s led us to create our famous invention pies.
It’s not uncommon to walk into our store and see a steak, caramelised onion and camembert pie — or even double bacon cheeseburger pie. We really push the limits of what can be enclosed in a pastry. And we love it.
Spreadsheets & paperwork
Before we introduced Unleashed, we were managing our inventory through spreadsheets and a hell of a lot of paperwork. It was extremely messy, and it made processing inventory a chore — because we just didn't have a clue what was going on in our stores.
"I put Unleashed through its paces… it was ideal"
Then, about seven years ago, we were switching over our accounting software. Through that, I noticed Unleashed and signed up for a free trial. I put as much of our data into as I could into it and put it through its paces for a couple of weeks. It was ideal for what we needed.
The biggest thing we achieved with Unleashed is flexibility in our operations. From anywhere around the world, at any time, I can jump on the app on my phone and know exactly what's going on in my business. As someone who's here, there and everywhere on any particular day, that’s priceless to me.
Several stores
We operate several stores across Western Australia and manage inventory across them via centralised distribution. When one of our stores needs more stock, they order it from our central hub, where our distribution manager collates their requirements and sends orders to our suppliers.
Baking at a Pinjarra store
Even with Unleashed in place, manually processing all the orders was a struggle. The rapid growth we were experiencing was creating a lot of internal paperwork for our distribution manager. She was spending up to four hours a day just entering the stores’ orders as they would come in.
Each store had an order list, so whenever we released a new product we’d need to update each order list too. Otherwise, some stores would miss out on our new products.
More flexibility with the B2B Store
When we saw that Unleashed’s B2B Store was up and running, we jumped on it. Because we knew that it could solve our problems.
Now, our stores can see all our latest products and raise orders at any time using the B2B portal, with all the data feeding straight into Unleashed. And if the order requires additional stock, then we can generate a purchase order to the relevant supplier directly from Unleashed.
Using Unleashed on site
We’re probably saving in the ballpark of $30,000 to $40,000 a year in wasted time using the B2B Store. That's from all our stores and in particular our distribution manager. It's also increased accuracy in our orders phenomenally.
Wholesale improvements
With the ordering between our stores sorted, we’ve also been able to use the B2B Store to start selling wholesale. As a business who's always looking to grow and evolve, we felt it was the next right step for us — so even more people can enjoy our products.
One of the things we overlooked moving to wholesale was how different all our customers are. They have different size businesses, they order in different volumes and each has their preferred product range.
Thanks to the B2B Store, that hasn’t been an issue. We can set different price tiers for each customer, and create product catalogues so they only see the products that we want them to see.
“I believe that business owners need to dedicate ourselves to the service of others”
Everyone is looking for convenience and efficiency and that's one thing that the B2B portal certainly provides. You log on and get a personalised experience with all your preferred products. It looks great, and you can place an order whenever you like. You don't even need to talk to someone. You’re just placing an order online, so it's really easy to use.
Going global
We have more store launches planned in the pipeline over the next six to twelve months. We're also going to continue to expand our wholesale model. Not just locally, but nationally — and we'd love to be able to export our pies internationally too.
I believe that these days business owners need to dedicate ourselves to the service of others: be it our staff, suppliers or most importantly our customers. The B2B Store has been instrumental in helping us do just that. It saves our staff time, it keeps us punctual with our suppliers and it provides our B2B customers with a seamless ordering experience.
Try the B2B eCommerce Store here.
