Table of Contents
** Minutes
Transitioning away from fulfillment solutions that weren’t working
Preserving brand reputation through quality packaging
Achieving transparent, competitive fulfillment pricing
Outsourcing fulfillment to boost accuracy, achieve faster shipping, and scale the business
Handling spikes in order volume with a lean fulfillment team
Managing thousands of SKUs through one platform
Sharing direct feedback and connecting with fellow merchants at Fulfilled
Learn how creative collective Makesy switched to ShipBob to achieve more accurate fulfillment and faster shipping across thousands of SKUs and scale their brand.
Customer Profile
Makesy strives to inspire creators by sourcing and producing thousands of premium supplies for candles, soaps, fragrances, and wellness products. Made using the highest-quality, eco-friendly ingredients, Makesy’s product selection caters to both individual shoppers looking for luxury experiences, and growing brands searching for everything from raw materials to customizable components to finished inventory. Makesy also offers businesses educational resources and bespoke “makers workshops” across the world, empowering brands to make innovative products that are better for people and the environment.
Key metrics
- Over 5,000 SKUs
- 10,000 orders per month
- Cut average shipping time by 67%
- From 2% to ~0% in errors
- Reduced their fulfillment team to 1/3 its original size by partnering with ShipBob
- 150 patents on wooden candle wicks
About Makesy
Makesy started with a single product: a wooden wick that crackles when it burns. It was a perfect fit for the growing candle and fragrance market, but it didn’t take long for Maskey’s team to realize how inaccessible that market was for smaller businesses. Creators were forced to either settle for the basic stock components that were widely available or purchase thousands of units from suppliers in bulk – which required capital that startups and side-hustles simply didn’t have.
Makesy’s team set out to create a middle ground, where small businesses could access unique, high-quality supplies and products that would normally only be available to more established brands, with no order minimums.
Flash forward 10 years, and Makesy has done just that. Not only do they have 150 patents on their classic wooden wicks, they also have over 5,000 unique products spanning the home fragrance and personal care categories (including room sprays, diffusers, incense, soap-making supplies, body care and bath products, perfume, and even lip gloss).
We sat down with Charlotte Katona, President of Makesy, to discuss how the brand leverages ShipBob to fulfill over 10,000 orders per month, curate brand image through quality packaging, boost order accuracy and shipping speed, and more.
Transitioning away from fulfillment solutions that weren’t working
As told to ShipBob by Charlotte Katona, President of Makesy.
For the majority of the time we’ve been in business, Makesy has been doing our own in-house manufacturing, production, and fulfillment. But as we started scaling, we realized we couldn’t really grow our production and manufacturing capacities because we had so many resources focused on picking and packing orders.
We knew it was time to outsource fulfillment, so we partnered with our first 3PL, which was unfortunately not ShipBob.
There were just so many things with our previous fulfillment provider that were not working for us, like how long it took to pack orders and the level of care our brand required. In general, they weren’t adhering to fulfillment best practices. Eventually, we decided to switch to ShipBob, and haven’t looked back.
“The transition to ShipBob was so smooth, especially considering that our previous 3PL didn’t follow best practices. Our previous provider took so long to pack out all our final inventory and packed it in a way that made it harder to receive and stow, but ShipBob was such a good sport. ShipBob’s freight team has handled all of the pickups from our previous 3PL transporting our inventory to our ShipBob fulfillment center, which was so nice. All we had to do was create warehouse receiving orders (WROs) for inbound inventory, and loop in our account manager telling them what we need picked up – and ShipBob handled the rest. Now that all of our inventory’s been moved over, we’re fulfilling orders seamlessly.”
Charlotte Katona, President of Makesy
Preserving brand reputation through quality packaging
After years of fulfilling our own orders in-house, one of my concerns with outsourcing fulfillment was always whether a partner could uphold our brand’s standards through packaging and presentation. We were used to customizing packaging exactly how we wanted to curate the customer’s impression of our business, so we expected the same attention to detail from our partner. But with our old 3PL, quality and care for the packaging process was not there.
ShipBob, on the other hand, has been fantastic at delivering premium unboxing experiences. With ShipBob managing fulfillment, we know that customers are experiencing our product the way we intended when it arrives on their doorstep, and our brand’s reputation is protected.
“Before I even committed to moving forward with ShipBob, I actually ordered products from a bunch of brands that I knew were also using ShipBob – and I was so impressed by how each order was packaged with total care and matched the aesthetic of the brand. Everything was just pristine, and I was blown away! Orders sent to our customers have been no different.”
Charlotte Katona, President of Makesy
Achieving transparent, competitive fulfillment pricing
Hidden fees were another big challenge with our previous fulfillment partner. When it’s your first time partnering with a 3PL, you don’t know what you don’t know. I went into our relationship with our first provider thinking that our costs would be in one place, and then they ended up being much higher.
ShipBob’s pricing model is much more transparent, and very competitive as well. I don’t have to worry about unexpected fees showing up on our invoices anymore, so it’s been a good experience for us.
Outsourcing fulfillment to boost accuracy, achieve faster shipping, and scale the business
The whole reason we decided to outsource fulfillment in the first place was to grow our business. The amount of energy, resources, planning, and effort that goes into fulfillment is tremendous, so having a trustworthy partner like ShipBob to take on that burden has enabled us to scale so much faster.
The best part is ShipBob’s fulfillment is actually more accurate than our in-house fulfillment was! When we were picking and packing orders, around 2% of them would have some sort of quality control issue. ShipBob brought that error rate to essentially zero. We ship thousands of orders, and we’ve almost never had mispicks, incorrect quantities, or anything like that. We’re also saving money because we don’t have to pay to reship products or lose profit on returns, and it’s a better customer experience.
“We saw opportunities to grow our business, but managing our own fulfillment was holding us back. ShipBob was much better equipped to handle fulfillment than we were – they’re truly fulfillment experts. Not only does ShipBob deliver more accurate fulfillment and faster shipping, but they also give us time back to focus on growing our production capacity so that the business can continue to scale. It’s a win-win.”
Charlotte Katona, President of Makesy
Not only that, ShipBob also ships our orders out super fast – faster than we had been shipping our own orders. Our stated lead time for our business had always been between 3-7 business days, and with ShipBob, most of our orders are shipped the same day or within 24 hours. It’s cut our lead times by two-thirds at least.
Cutting shipping times has helped us create a great experience for our customers, too. Because a lot of our customers are buying our product to make something to sell (like doing side hustles, selling products at farmers markets or on their Etsy store, etc.), it’s absolutely critical that they get their orders quickly. Their ability to meet deadlines and maintain income often depends on our shipping speed, so it’s been great to be able to rely on ShipBob to deliver when the stakes are high.
Handling spikes in order volume with a lean fulfillment team
Without ShipBob, we would probably have to have 20-30 people managing fulfillment; with ShipBob, it’s just 6 or 7, some of whom are only tangentially involved.
We’re using significantly less resources, and we experience less volatility during a sale or peak season since there’s a lot less pressure on our warehouse team to bring in additional labor.
ShipBob was amazing during peak season. They did a really great job keeping up with demand and scaling quickly to handle our DTC orders.
And it was a good thing they did; our B2B business was significantly higher this peak than in past years, and our team was already straining to handle that volume. It would have been tough to deal with Black Friday Cyber Monday volume for our online business on top of that.
That experience further solidified the fact that we want all our order volume – DTC and B2B – to go through ShipBob, because they’re so good at what they do.
Managing thousands of SKUs through one platform
We have over 5,000 SKUs, but that hasn’t been a problem for us in working with ShipBob. Their dashboard gives us visibility to inventory management, which has been excellent. ShipBob’s inventory counts are very accurate to what’s on-hand, and we can always see what we have available there. We also have an integration between our ERP, NetSuite, and ShipBob, so inventory data is always being fed back into NetSuite for us to view inventory counts there.
“I always had this misconception that we had too many SKUs to work with a 3PL. I saw the inventory management, the storage costs, and the inherent complexity of a business our size as barriers to working with a fulfillment partner – but with ShipBob, they haven’t been. ShipBob works with plenty of customers that have much higher SKU counts than we do, and managing them all in ShipBob’s dashboard has been seamless.”
Charlotte Katona, President of Makesy
Sharing direct feedback and connecting with fellow merchants at Fulfilled
In June of 2024, I attended ShipBob’s annual merchant event, Fulfilled. I absolutely loved it!
I especially loved getting to network with other ecommerce brands and learn how they’re leveraging ShipBob’s services. I knew ShipBob offered capabilities like fulfillment for TikTok orders, international expansion, and the Inventory Placement Program, but I didn’t realize other brands were having so much success with them! Hearing about these programs directly from brands in a similar space with similar tech stacks to ours was so helpful. Plus, I was relieved to hear from other merchants that all of the pain points we experienced with our last 3PL (like shipping speed, quality control, and packaging) are strengths for ShipBob.
I also really valued the breakaway workshops where we got to meet with members of the leadership team at ShipBob, and everyone got to say what’s working well for us, what’s not, and what we’d want to see from ShipBob in the future. I thought that was such a cool, transparent thing to do. You would think that gathering merchants together to talk about what needs improvement would be the last thing ShipBob would want to do – but to me, it was so indicative of ShipBob’s commitment to excellent service. They’re not afraid of feedback, especially if it means their merchants will benefit.
What’s next for Makesy
At Makesy, we’re more than just a supplier—we’re a partner in growth for the makers, creators, and small businesses that rely on us. Our customers are at the heart of what we do. We’re always thinking ahead, anticipating their needs, and evolving our offerings to support their success. Whether it’s sourcing the best products, developing essential tools, or fostering strategic partnerships, we’re committed to making business easier, more efficient, and more profitable for our customers.
One of our most exciting innovations in the last year is our private-label-ready product line. These are fully finished, high-quality products that come unlabeled, allowing makers to easily launch or expand their brand without the complexity of production and sourcing. This initiative has already seen incredible momentum, and we expect it to become a major part of Makesy’s future—empowering entrepreneurs with seamless, scalable product solutions.
We’re also expanding our B2B partnerships in a big way. While we already collaborate with major craft retailers across the U.S., we’re working to bring Makesy products into even more stores, increasing accessibility and brand presence nationwide.
At Makesy, we serve a diverse range of customers, and what sets us apart is our commitment to understanding and anticipating what each customer profile needs to thrive. With ShipBob as our fulfillment partner, we’re ensuring that not only is Makesy positioned for success, but our customers are, too—because when our makers win, we all win.
Makesy’s team at ShipBob
Cole Shubert
Cole is the Sr. Enterprise Account Executive who helped Makesy get started with ShipBob.
Jordan Altamuro
Jordan is the Implementation Consultant who onboarded Makesy.
Christina Baker
Christina is the Merchant Success Manager at ShipBob who supports Makesy.
Get started with ShipBob
Want to improve your ecommerce fulfillment strategy and scale your business? Discover if ShipBob is the right fit for your brand and request a fulfillment quote below.
