CASE STUDY

How Sellercloud gave Trade Evolution the tools they needed to have

full visibility into their business and operations, leading the way for the

company to grow from $500k to $3.5M in monthly GMV

“We’re saving $3.5 million per month.”

• Ricardo Dominguez, CEO, Trade Evolution
  A Sellercloud case study with Trade Evolution
  Industry Founded Headquarters: Company Size
  General Merchandise, 2015 Miami, FL 98 employees

Before Sellercloud

The challenge

Based in Miami, Florida, Trade Evolution describes itself as ‘a complex of Amazon Seller companies, born to help brands promote and boost the sales of their products to a worldwide audience.’

“When we initially started, we started selling cell phones and the cell phone category,” Ricardo Dominguez, CEO of Trade Evolution, explains. “We started very, very small. We were selling three, five orders a day. So, it was super easy to manage all the inventory, manage the orders coming in,” Dominguez tells us. Little by little, as the company grew, they began to target whatever products they saw as the most profitable. Today, using a data-driven approach, Trade Evolution sells anything with good margins.

Most of its orders are handled through WFS (Walmart Fulfillment Services) and FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) fulfillment centers, primarily using its own warehouses to prep, label, and ship inventory to FBA and WFS. “We use Amazon fulfillment centers for most of our service,” says Rony Aranguren, COO of Trade Evolution.

While primarily serving the US market, Trade Evolution has grown internationally with five global locations, two global distribution centers, and offices in Miami, Colombia, and Venezuela. In addition to Amazon and Walmart, they sell on eBay and Newegg and have WooCommerce and Shopify websites.

It’s a familiar story; it was easy in the beginning, but that didn’t last long. Trade Evolution grew rapidly, and pretty soon, everything was becoming nearly impossible to monitor, threatening the survival of their business. “We didn’t even know how much value of inventory we had in our warehouse,” says Dominguez concerningly.

On top of that, Trade Evolution was struggling to manage its FBM (Fulfilled By Merchant) operations. Like many e-commerce businesses that started from scratch, Trade Evolution attempted to use Excel for everything, which is never a good idea. They needed a solution to automate inventory management to reduce mistakes, increase order accuracy, and save time. Unfortunately, most of the e-commerce solutions on the market were disappointing. A significant pain point for Dominguez was that many didn’t allow them to create POs (purchase orders) or a fulfillment process. He adds that many of the tools that specialized in Amazon could never fully integrate with their warehouse processes. “It’s just inventory management, and they sync with FBA, but they don’t really have a way or an outlet for all the inventory that comes in,” said Dominguez.

The solution

Trade Evolution’s search for an e-commerce solution was primarily motivated by the need to get a complete picture of its burgeoning inventory. “They were really looking for that all-in-one system that will be able to help them manage their e-commerce operations and from there also help them grow,” summarizes Sellercloud Account Manager, Joanna Camardo.

What made Sellercloud such a pleasure to use was two things: 1) it was highly scalable, and 2) it could be customized to each of the company’s procedures, so Trade Evolution didn’t need to change how it worked. Sellercloud could be whatever they needed it to be.

By improving shipping accuracy, Sellercloud has helped Trade Evolution lower shipping costs. With Sellercloud, this was no longer an issue, as they could connect as many services and plugins as they needed through Sellercloud’s APIs. In fact, this was a big deal for Trade Evolution, which won an exclusivity deal with a partner because it could integrate easily with them via an API. Trade Evolution also praised Sellercloud.

Aranguren also notes how Sellercloud has improved the speed at which Trade Evolution operates and helps avoid mistakes. “I think that we have almost no mistakes in shipments,” he says, emphasizing FBA shipments in particular.

After Sellercloud

Trade Evolution has seen a staggering improvement since adopting Sellercloud in 2022. “We’re saving $3.5 million per month,” says Dominguez. What’s more, Dominguez is confident that Trade Evolution has found the only e-commerce solution to keep up with its intense level of growth. No more working on one solution for a year, discovering it’s not right for them, and searching for another.

Trade Evolution was also pleased with Sellercloud’s onboarding process and found Sellercloud’s customer support refreshing to work with. “Whenever we find that we don’t know how to do anything in particular or a specific task, Sellercloud support is super easy to reach out to,” explains Dominguez.

Dominguez also notes how Sellercloud supports company growth. “We see it as a tool that we could use moving forward to where we’re eventually selling five, seven, $10 million per month,” says Dominguez. Aranguren agrees. “If you want to grow, you have to use a service like Sellercloud,” he says, adding, “It’s the best option that a company should consider.”