Help for Heroes: Changing Lives and Retail Platforms

In 2007, Bryn and Emma Parry co-founded the British charity Help for Heroes.  They set themselves one objective, to help those who have put their lives on the line in our Armed Forces. 

As part of the effort to raise funds for the charity, Help for Heroes Trading was established to design and deliver high-quality products and merchandise – from clothing and accessories, to gifts and homewares – to the charity’s supporters across the country. Help for Heroes Trading is fully owned by the charity and all proceeds go back to the charity, assisting the organisation in continuing to provide expert support and care to those wounded or injured whilst serving in the British Armed Forces.

A spokesperson from Help for Heroes Trading added: “At Help for Heroes, we believe the men and women who have to leave their career in the Armed Forces as a result of physical or psychological wounds deserve our support for as long as they need it. However, we rely on the spirit and generosity of the great British public to keep going.” 

“Anyone buying products and or donating via our shop website is providing vital support to veterans and their families. It is critical to the ongoing success of the Trading arm of the charity, that we handle supporters’ orders quickly, accurately, securely and as cost-efficiently as possible. Having a system that fully supports those requirements is essential”.

Supporting a Burgeoning Digital Presence
What began with just nine products has evolved to over 500 items sold primarily via Help for Heroes’ Shopify Plus website, alongside online marketplaces including eBay and Amazon.    As the organisation grew and its digital presence expanded, Help for Heroes Trading needed a new software environment to support further growth.

The team drew up a list of prerequisites from a new provider. Topping the list was the need to be reliable, extensible and scalable while offering superior functionality around reporting and advanced fulfilment.

After considering other providers, Help for Heroes opted for Brightpearl’s retail focused Digital Operations Platform (DOP), due to its superior ecommerce and point of sale integrations with Shopify Plus, and 3PL softwares such as Shiptheory, combined with advanced fulfilment features.

Getting Live in under TWO months for Peak Trading
Having committed to Brightpearl in summer 2019, it was urgent that the organisation had the system in place quickly to capitalise on its peak season, which runs from October to December. 

Utilising Brightpearl meant that Help for Heroes was able to get online in under two months, meaning that the organisation was primed for peak season.

Heroic Order Efficiency Increases
Getting online quickly was vital, but the team at Help for Heroes were seeking major benefits from Brightpearl’s retail-tailored WMS system, needing it to fully integrate with the business, drive down handling times and boost order processing speed.

A spokesperson from Help for Heroes Trading added “Using Brightpearl’s WMS allowed Help for Heroes to streamline fulfilment processes such as automated generation of carrier labels via integration with Shiptheory and the move to using barcode scanning for put-away, picking and packing. All of this has helped to make these processes approximately 30% faster and more efficient.”

The improvements have allowed the company to keep up with big increases in online demand, which were particularly apparent during the onset of the Covid pandemic. Despite peak order volumes being up by more than a third year-on-year, having Brightpearl in place meant the team experienced almost no system downtime and, on the few occasions assistance was required, the high quality, quick responses from the Brightpearl Support team enabled Help for Heroes to still get orders out the door on time, even at peak, while ensuring greater levels of accuracy and therefore, customer service.

www.shop.helpforheroes.org.uk.