"The source of our products brings particular difficulties in product handling, which Prolog has shown itself particularly adept at coping with."
Fulfiling the potential of trade as aid
For more than 25 years, TearFund - through its trading arm Tearcraft - has been supporting skilled craftspeople in developing countries like India, Africa and Bangladesh, not just by opening up outlets in the UK and Ireland for their hand-made high-quality, gift-based products, but crucially by ensuring that they get a fair price for their work.
A pioneer of the concept of 'trade as aid', TearFund last year offered support to more than 430 projects in 90 countries through its innovative catalogue-shopping.
By providing hands-on added value service, Prolog is maximising its client's return, through stringent stock control and by keeping the costs of order fulfilment and despatch to a minimum. Even prompt and efficient banking does much to improve cash flow.
With more than 13,600 orders and 144,500 itemsmoved in four months, volumes are substantial, but Prolog has the huge capacity and scalability to cope with high volumes and seasonal peaks.
Tearcraft outsource our order handling and inventory management to Prolog. It manages the call centre, the warehousing and order processing. We don't have to run our own warehouse or staff to handle the run-up to Christmas. If phone orders doubled, Prolog could handle it, we couldn't.
Neil Stevens, Tearcraft
Since October 1997, Prolog has been a force behind the development of the charity's e-retail potential and has been providing flexible storage and multi-channel order fulfilment for all the items sold through the twice-yearly Tearcraft 'fair trade' catalogues.
The range is wide and varied and includes kitchen and bathroom goods, toys, games, jewellery and greeting cards, to name just some of the 300-plus lines. Tearcraft has sales of about £1.6 million and stocks 500,000 items at Prolog's modern warehouse complex near Nottingham.
Prolog also distributes support materials and display equipment to the trade and to a national network of more than 1200 volunteer TearFund agents.
Irrespective of whether the order is presented bymail, phone, email or Internet, Prolog offers a seamless experience for customers, charity representatives and the trade.
This includes first-time, every-time resolution of queries by our dedicated contact centre team, and sensitive but effective up-selling and cross selling to enhance order levels.
Prolog has also developed a Tearcraft website, which has full shopping basket facilities and a dedicated section for the representatives to place their orders.
Like all retailers, Tearcraft faces two challenges: Anticipating customer demand and then ensuring there is the stock that customers want. Through their marketing partnership with Prolog, they are winning through on both fronts, and so are the many thousands of needy people that they represent.
The Challenge for Tearcraft
A reliable outsourced bulk storage, fulfilment and customer service infrastructure to support a high-profile charity's successful catalogue retailing initiative. The capacity and scalability to cope with peaks in demand and to provide added value support to maximise the charity yield.
The Solution
Prolog's multi-channel order taking and fulfilment infrastructure, fully integrated with a tailor made customer service and contact centre solution
The Results
The development of a highly successful web-based catalogue retail operation that has become a model world-wide for the power of 'trade as aid'