State & Liberty Clothing Company’s Omnichannel Fulfillment

State & Liberty, an omnichannel distributor of men’s athletic-fit apparel, replaced inefficient, error-prone manual fulfillment practices with the Descartes Peoplevox™ ecommerce warehouse management solution (WMS) integrated with the Descartes ShipRush™ multi-carrier ecommerce parcel shipping solution. The cloud-based, scalable solution, integrated with Brightpearl retail operating system (ROS), automated and streamlined the retailer’s pick-pack-ship workflow, boosting productivity and business growth, minimizing the risk of mis-ships, and tightening inventory control for an optimized customer experience.  

State & Liberty launched as an ecommerce company in 2015, shipping athletic-fit dress shirts around the globe from its warehouse in Ann Arbor, MI. Experimenting with pop-up locations in 2017, the omnichannel retailer rapidly expanded to 29 brick-and-mortar retail outlets across North America—an expansion initially encumbered by time-consuming manual fulfillment processes prone to inaccuracies. Relying on paper pick lists and employees’ personal knowledge to locate items in the warehouse, coupled with a lack of visibility into inventory and fulfillment metrics, State & Liberty were not operating at their full sales growth potential.  

“With the combined Descartes Peoplevox + ShipRush solution, integrated with Brightpearl ROS and Loop for returns management, we’ve experienced 75% faster picking using 67% less labor, +95% order accuracy, and game-changing inventory visibility and control—a massive operational improvement that has been instrumental to our explosive growth."  

- Grant Kiefaber, Special Projects State & Liberty 

State and Liberty Clothing Co. is a pioneer in athletic cut men's dress shirts and other men’s apparel constructed from Athletic Performance Fabric (APF). Founded in 2015 in Ann Arbor, MI, the rapidly-expanding omnichannel retailer currently sells its APF clothing via www.stateandliberty.com and in 29 retail locations across the U.S. and Canada. 

In support of its accelerated growth from strictly ecommerce fulfillment to an omnichannel model encompassing a steadily-expanding network of retail locations, State & Liberty implemented Descartes Peoplevox WMS and Descartes ShipRush to streamline fulfillment of online orders and store transfers. 

“Before Descartes, each morning we would print out a pick list and a shipping label for every order. Based on their personal knowledge of the warehouse, a team of 12 pickers would go through the aisles searching for items,” said Grant Kiefaber, in charge of Special Projects at State & Liberty. “Even though we’re a much bigger company now, four people with barcode scanners do all of our picking in the first two hours of the day with Descartes Peoplevox. It’s a massive improvement.” 

“For single-item picking, we can pick 50 items in ten minutes with standard-setting accuracy, where previously the task would take over an hour,” added Landon Piazza, General Manager of Warehouse Operations. “Plus, our transition was very smooth. We were up and running to 80% of Peoplevox’s capabilities within half a day—with the entire warehouse team trained and able to execute—which is unheard of.” 

Descartes Peoplevox provides precise inventory management and visibility, with sales, dispatch, inventory, product and returns data passing seamlessly between Brightpearl and Peoplevox. “We’re able do cycle counts through our pick faces to ensure accurate inventory volumes. These real-time numbers are reflected on the website to prevent overstock, overselling, and frustrated customers,” said Kiefaber. 

On the shipping side, Descartes ShipRush is fully integrated with Descartes Peoplevox to automate the dispatch process and ensure fast, cost-effective shipping. “The power of ShipRush is that sits in the background, enabling us to stay in Peoplevox for a seamless workflow. We simply scan the package and it prints out the shipping label, without causing extra delays by needing to jump to a third-party site,” said Kiefaber. 

“The Descartes solution also provides 360 degree visibility into our daily operations,” said Kiefaber. “We’ve configured our dashboard to provide metrics on the number of daily orders and how each station is performing (i.e., how many orders and items they’ve packed) to give us a clear picture of where we’re at throughout the day. Now we’ve got very transparent metrics and very transparent goals of what we need to accomplish.” 

State & Liberty replaced error-prone, paper-based manual processes with barcode-based fulfillment to minimize mispicks and mis-ships, ensuring customers receive the right products every time. Plus, warehouse inventory is synced in real-time with the website to ensure accurate stock availability for customers. 

Leveraging handheld scanners and the combined Descartes fulfillment solution, State & Liberty automated and accelerated its pick-pack-dispatch process, picking the day’s orders in two hours with only four employees.  

Tightly integrated with Brightpearl ROS and Loop for returns management, the Descartes solution ensures State & Liberty know exactly where each item is, where it came from, and where it ended up. Plus, key fulfillment metrics inform daily operational decision-making and data-driven long-term planning to meet growth targets. 

State & Liberty was up and running with Descartes Peoplevox and Descartes ShipRush within half a day, streamlining operations and automating order fulfillment tasks to realize efficiency, productivity, and cost-saving benefits immediately.