“Orderhive completes us; we are an organization with several different military antiques, and each antique needs to be managed separately because of the uniqueness. Having orderhive’s automation by our side solved many order processing and inventory management issues for us. We could also fight fraud orders with the help of orderhive.”
-Alex Cranmer – CEO, IMA
Alex Cranmer is also the antique arms and military expert on National Geographic’s show on the History Channel’s “Pawn Stars” filming more than 50 episodes over the past five seasons.
About International Military Antiques
Seeds of IMA –
It all started in 1965 when at the age of 19 years Christian Cranmer started the Fire Power International south of London that sowed the seeds of IMA. Christian then went on a quest to find the lost and forgotten weapons of the great wars and the world’s militaries.
The Birth of IMA –
International Military Antiques sell the antique arms of the militaries of all around the world.
In 1981, with his inherited collection of 300 military antiques from his father, he started the business when he was 24 years old in his native place, London. He began investigating and found the big stashes of old military munitions, and then he used to sell those weapons to the collectors around Europe.
Venturing in eCommerce –
In 2004 when the Christian cranmer’s son Alex Cranmer joined his dad in the business, he proposed to create a website and enter the ecommerce industry. After which IMA grew to become the world leader of the military collectible and antique gun industry.
The Hollywood Connection –
IMA is famous in Hollywood for the supply of antique arms for period films. They supplied military antiques for movies like Dunkirk, Fury, Band Of Brothers Saving Private Ryan, etc..
Problems and Challenges They Faced due to Their Growing Business.
- Fraud customers and orders were a big challenge, and because the items are costly and unique, they can’t afford to get scammed.
- Since they had each piece with a different description, it became complicated to quickly tag orders and process orders.
- Automation due to an increased number of orders and fast order processing
- Managing different channels listing Etsy, Walmart, and Shopify and listing on them took time, and the previous channel management tool didn’t work as efficiently as they were promised and confused the product’s identities.
- There are over 1 lakh 21 antique items with a unique identity; hence managing each product individually in inventory was tough with inefficient inventory management software.
- Inventory management was not able to reduce manual errors. They kept facing problems with actual data and virtual data mismatch, which led to last hour rush and increased cancellations from their side.
- They needed automation to speed up their inventory and order management processes.
Solutions Provided By Orderhive
- Frauds are dealt with by blocking the orders with different shipping and billing addresses and automatically sending an email to the buyer to verify their identity by sending their id proof and last four digits of their credit card.
- Orderhive helped them integrate with Channel Advisor to manage their channels and order listings.
- Order tagging and quick order processing with automatic payment updations, order confirmations, and creation of picklists.
- Orders from all the channels – Etsy, Walmart, and Shopify and integrating the orders to the central inventory.
- Orderrhive’s inventory management software lets them manage their 1 lakh 21 thousand products by providing different types of automatically generated inventory reports.
- Decreasing the void between the actual and virtual data by automatically taking the data from barcode scannings of the incoming and outgoing inventory.
Final Outcome of Orderhive Implementation
“We’ve been live on Orderhive for 2 weeks and overall I am really impressed. The API for the marketplaces is second to none. The Back End processes work wonderfully. You’ve allowed a system where the user can customize and control their platform. Your support team is always communicative and eager to help, you offer customization and deliver. The positives go on and on. Bravo! You’ve designed an excellent system that I believe can power a multitude of businesses sizes and models.”
– Alex Cranmer, CEO IMA
International Military Antiques, as they say, has achieved a fantastic control over their order and inventory management with the help of automation provided by the orderhive.
Frauds decreased, which in turn increased their profits, along with allowing them to focus on real orders.
Order processing has become smooth because managing paid, unpaid, and partially paid orders from different channels with the help of integrated order management software.
Increased perfect order percentage has reduced returns and helped them to meet order deadlines, thus decreasing the SLA breach rate.
Inventory management has become more proficient, thus leading to a better understanding of the status of each antique military item.
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