Meet the company: Trojan

There comes a time for every growing business when they hit a wall and need to change to grow. Often this can be a simple capacity restriction which can be solved by moving to larger premises or using a fulfilment service.

Trojan are one company who can certainly offer just such a fulfilment service, but can help your business in so many other ways as well.

Through their experience with large retailers, Trojan have the know how to help you get onto eBay Daily Deals or can fast track your products onto Amazon’s Seller fulfilled FBA program once they’re in Trojan’s warehouse.

I spoke to Clive Murphy, Managing Director at Trojan to find out more about how they can help growing SME online retailers accelerate their growth:

What do Trojan Do?

Trojan offers a similar service to FBA (Fulfilment By Amazon) but we’re not a marketplace ourselves, and our fees are standardized irrespective of where products are sold. From a single pool of stock you can sell on eBay, Amazon, your own website, via daily deal sites like Groupon and Wowcher or even B2B.

We are often asked “is Trojan a 3PL”, but whilst elements of our service offerings can be found in the 3PL arena, we are a lot more than that, more like a 4PL, that has a team working with you to help you grow your sales; Trojan provides industry leading service levels to its clients.

Is Fulfilment just for big retailers?

Trojan considers itself fortunate to work with a number of the largest retailers and manufactures on the planet, however our SME customers are of equal importance to us, and we work with many of them across multiple categories.

We fully appreciate not all SME’s will contract out their entire operation, so we offer a tailored menu service where we can cover all, or elements of listing optimisation, pre and post customer service, warehouse, pick pack and dispatch. If you want help on customer service only, Trojan can do that. If you want help with all or just a percentage of your warehouse/logistics requirements, Trojan can do that. If you want to run one off campaigns on daily deal sites, Trojan can help with, plus many other services also.

How do you work with retailers?

Trojan operates returns management for retailers and manufacturers, so we are well versed with managing all manner of returns, and accommodating peak periods. We also manage stores on marketplace such as eBay for retailers, including full listing management, buyer communications as well as fulfilment.

The capacity within our 180,000 sq ft facility allows for tens of thousands of orders per day on each single shift. Our current facility is under two years old, purpose built and is running at under half full capacity currently, so we have plenty of scope for new business.

Fastmoving lines e.g. Prime Day deals

Trojan are well versed in managing online daily deals across multiple platforms. Trojan has a workforce of 130 people, with a high percentage cross trained, enabling them to undertake various roles within the business.

Growth without SME needing larger premises

Corporate companies are well versed at contracting out a wide range of services/requirements to allow them to concentrate on the core elements of their business’s. SME’s can often allow their infrastructure to limit their growth, this doesn’t have to be the case. Trojan enable businessess to significantly grow without the need to invest in expensive infrastructure, to grow without physical boundaries.

So is your service like FBA for all marketplaces?

FBA but we suggest with a beneficial twist! Trojan look to provide a service as good as FBA but allow for you a single inventory holding, that is available across multiple channels like eBay, Amazon, Daily deals like Groupon, Wowcher. Truly simultaneous selling, with full reporting.

How can you help SMEs grow their business

Do you spend more of your time working in your business instead of on it? How many people start a business saying “I just love managing a warehouse” or “I’ve started my business as I love dealing with customer service”. By using one or all of the services Trojan offer this not only allows you to accelerate your growth, but gives you the time back to work on your business, not in it.

eBay Daily Deals

Trojan work closely with eBay, and as eBay know we are a reliable partner, we can often help to expedite processes.

Seller fulfilled FBA

Trojan is one of the few companies that meet the SLA requirements for seller fulfilled FBA.

What will it cost?

The cost is dependent on the services we are providing.

If we are offering a full service including listing and optimisation, pre and post customer service, warehouse and pick pack and dispatch then this is normally based on a percentage of turnover we manage for you.

If we are purely offering a warehouse and pick pack and dispatch solution, then this is typically around the same price that you are paying in carriage costs alone – with Trojan’s economies of scale, our courier costs are very competitive and these savings are passed onto our clients. As an example, a 1kg parcel, fulfilled on a tracked service with same day dispatch for orders placed up to 3pm (soon to be pushed out to 5pm) would cost from around £3.00 for pick, pack dispatch including the courier charges.