Blue Moon Appliance is a retailer of household goods with stores spread across five locations in the United States. They specialize in “scratch and dent” appliances, as well as providing parts for electrical goods such as refrigerators and washing machines and offer a wide range of cost-effective furniture.

We caught up with Jennifer Riley, Online Sales Manager at Blue Moon Appliance, to find out how SkuVault Core has helped remove complexity from their ecommerce operation.  

Life before SkuVault Core: Manual processes — and risks of human error 

“Inventory was a huge concern because we were using Google Sheets. We had to go in and edit it manually,” explains Riley. She continues, “If something sold, we would have to go in, find it and change the inventory. Mistakes were being made.” 

For Blue Moon Appliance, this process was challenging. “Our systems weren’t connected, so we’d have to physically control the quantity on eBay. If one of our team came in and was like, “I need this item” and I gave it to them, I’d have to take it off of Sheets and then I’d have to go and take it off of eBay.”  

Avoiding oversells on eBay 

For Blue Moon Appliance, human error and poor tracking was leading to lost revenue for their business. Riley describes, “Things were selling on eBay that we didn’t have anymore. Someone would forget to take it off of eBay or mistakes were being made, or we would only see it incorrectly in sheets… It was just a huge problem.” 

These challenges were a significant bottleneck on the team. As Riley recalls, “If I was managing eBay by myself, it’s still a big deal, but if there’s more than one person doing it, things get more complicated.” 

Overselling was especially challenging for Blue Moon Appliance, as replacements simply weren’t an option. “We can’t really replace orders because boards are specific to individual machines. It’s not like I can be like, “well, I’ll just send you something comparable” because for your fridge, there’s only one board that works,” Riley explains. She continues, “so we usually cancel the order for the customer and let them know we don’t have it or that there was a problem.” 

Thankfully, SkuVault Core has been able to help. “We’ve cut down loads on inventory problems with SkuVault Core. So that’s been really nice,” Riley confirms. She expands, “[managing inventory] is a lot easier with the program because there’s no mistakes, and we’re not double listing things.” 

“We’ve cut down loads on inventory problems with SkuVault Core. So that’s been really nice.”

Jennifer Riley

The confidence to sell on new channels 

Blue Moon Appliance had previously tried to expand to new channels — and run into trouble. Riley explains, “my boss had asked about selling on other platforms.  At one point, a long time ago, they were on more than one — and they ran into the problem of manually managing inventory.” She continues, “I wasn’t willing to go to other platforms without something to help me run the inventory, because unless I can physically be there looking at it at all times, I can’t control the inventory on the other platforms.” 

With SkuVault Core, Riley has the confidence to introduce new channels into the mix. “On [most marketplaces], if you cancel a bunch of times, then you’re not a top-rated seller, and they charge you more fees. But with SkuVault Core managing our inventory, if I only have one and it sells, it’ll be put on hold, and it’ll take it to zero on the other channels.” 

Seamless implementation with flexible support

For Blue Moon Appliance, smooth implementation for their new inventory management tool was vital. “SkuVault Core handled all our questions, when I was asking, “Hold on, I don’t understand this step. Can you slow down?” They were really nice.” Riley recounts. 

“SkuVault Core handled all our questions, when I was asking, “Hold on, I don’t understand this step. Can you slow down?” They were really nice.”

Jennifer Riley

Flexibility was also important during this implementation. “For a whole week, I wasn’t doing inventory because I was needed to manage a shipment that needed to be put in the stores,” Riley explains. “[The SkuVault Core team] were flexible, and let us push it back a week. They were super nice and were really easy to work with.”