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After managing fulfillment in-house for two decades, pest- and bark-control brand Good Life outsourced to Airhouse to maximize efficiency—and saved 30% in fulfillment costs.
Since its founding in 2002, Good Life has prided itself on being a locally owned and operated company—including running fulfillment in-house. But in late 2022, the brand’s expansion into omnichannel sales, coupled with economic pressures, forced company President Patrick Mahaffey to reevaluate his fulfillment strategy.
“Our entire supply chain and logistics chain was extremely complicated,” Patrick said. Once it left the manufacturer, Good Life’s inventory passed through multiple third-party warehouses before arriving at the company’s own warehouse in Medford. From there, orders were shipped globally—racking up huge shipping costs because the fulfillment center wasn’t centrally located.
“It didn’t make any sense, and it was very expensive.”
At the same time, Good Life was preparing to ramp up its marketplace sales channels through Amazon FBA and international retailers. The company was about to outgrow its existing warehouse, and Patrick knew his existing operations weren’t prepared to scale with the business.
“The fact is, if you're going to compete, you have to be as efficient and effective as possible,” he said.
Patrick and Operations Specialist Eric Peters evaluated 11 3PLs before landing on Airhouse. They quickly found that most of their options weren’t prepared to handle both direct-to-consumer and wholesale fulfillment.
“Most 3PLs getting into the DTC space are trying to cherry-pick the most lucrative part of it—but they wouldn’t do wholesale because it’s not as profitable,” Patrick explained. “Traditional 3PLs certainly did wholesale fulfillment, but they had old systems in place—they were logistics-first, rather than being customer- and technology-first.”
“Airhouse could support all of our channels, had technology that made integrating our ecommerce store fast and easy, and on a going-forward basis, we’re spending less money to get that functionality."
Patrick had three non-negotiable requirements for his fulfillment partner:
In the end, Airhouse came out on top.
“Airhouse could support all of our channels, had technology that made integrating our ecommerce store fast and easy, and on a going-forward basis, we’re spending less money to get that functionality,” Patrick said. “It wasn't that tough of a decision.”
Good Life has saved 30% in per-order fulfillment costs since onboarding with Airhouse, thanks to a simplified supply chain and eliminated overhead. In addition to closing its own warehouse, the company scrapped its complicated and expensive ERP system, opting to use the Airhouse platform as its inventory system of record.
Outsourcing fulfillment has also bolstered the company’s margins. By converting certain fixed costs to variable, Patrick’s team only pays for the storage and labor it needs based on order volume.
“We have fairly aggressive growth plans, and we no longer have to worry about facilities management as we grow,” Patrick said.
“Airhouse has a lot more flexibility in its logistics modeling and ability to execute than I would ever have with in-house fulfillment. I really do look at Airhouse as a partner to help make decisions.”
