Inbound Logistics | January 2023

ITTOOLKIT [ IN PRACTICE ] By offering minimalist, modern design and quality materials, home furnishing company Oliver Space has grown to more than 100 employees over the past three years, expanding from its headquarters in San Francisco to serve six cities along the West Coast and in southwestern United States. Along the way, it has helped furnish thousands of homes.

Design Time: Leveraging a WMS to Furnish Homes Sustainably

THE CUSTOMER Oliver Space sells premium,

curated furniture sourced from top manufacturers designed for quality and durability. Customers can request a delivery date for as soon as three days after ordering. The Oliver Space team delivers, assembles, and places the furniture. THE PROVIDER SnapFulfil, oered by Synergy North America, based in Broomfield, Colorado, is a cloud-based, flexible, Tier 1 warehouse management system that is highly configurable and can adapt to meet evolving fulfillment demands.

clean and refurbish them, employing the company’s nine-point refurbishment process. Customers who return furniture receive credit toward future orders. Once the products have been refurbished, Oliver Space offers them for sale on its website. About 60% of the company’s catalog is currently offered in both new and refurbished condition. REDUCING FURNITURE WASTE “We’re aiming to disrupt the furniture shopping experience by reducing the tremendous amount of waste,” Guckian says. In 2018, more than 9.6 million tons of furniture ended up in landlls, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Over the past six months, Oliver Space’s initiatives have kept nearly 200,000 pounds of furniture out of landlls. At the same time, offering new and refurbished items adds complexity to the company’s business model. “We are constantly shipping out a variety of products, while trying to manage the returns and refurbishment in our circular ecosystem,” Guckian says.

Since mid-2022, Oliver Space has also offered customers the option to purchase not only its new items, but also products other customers have returned and that have been professionally cleaned and refurbished. These are sold at lower prices than the new items, enabling customers to watch both their budgets and the environment. At the same time, handling and tracking returned items presents numerous supply chain challenges. To manage them, Oliver Space turned to SnapFull, a cloud-based, Tier-1, exible warehouse management system (WMS). “Oliver Space is building a circular economy for furniture,” says David Guckian, the company’s product manager. Along with its curated catalog displaying modern furniture and accessories, Oliver Space works with customers who’ve decided to trade in the gently used furniture they’ve purchased from the company. It then deploys its white-glove service to pick up the items, after which technicians

by Karen Kroll

January 2023 • Inbound Logistics 237