It was a pleasure to visit George Robinson at SoSweet this week, I’ve honestly never seen so many sweets in one place before, but it’s to be expected in a warehouse serving 13 busy shops plus supporting their online operations.
This is a real success story, too often we’re hearing that the high street is contracting, but SoSweet are still expanding and plan multiple new store openings in 2024. And this is a business that opened their first sweetshop in Westward Ho a decade ago.
SoSweet rapidly adopted online retailing with their own website, an app, and more recently TikTok. In the video, George tells of their first big Black Friday in 2023, how they were overwhelmed with 25,000 orders, and the steps they have put in place to prepare for Black Friday 2024 – spoiler alert, their most recent update was the implementation of Peoplevox WMS to streamline operations, alongside their Utordo ecommerce back office Integration.
Lessons learned in this video include the importance of a robust WMS, logistics with injection directly into Royal Mail’s delivery office, and optimising use of FBT (Fulfilled by TikTok) to reduce reliance on their inhouse warehouse:
- 00:00 Introducing George Robinson and SoSweet
- 01:33 Rapidly expanding the Brick & Mortar business
- 03:42 SoSweet’s early success on TikTok
- 05:48 SoSweet 2023 Black Friday period success and challenges
- 07:36 Implementing WMS and robust warehouse procedures
- 10:10 Injecting orders into Royal Mail delivery hub
- 10:41 Using FBT (Fulfilled By TikTok) for top selling SKUs
- 13:42 What’s next for SoSweet – Growing the brand
