Since its inception in 2016, Ledloket has been reaching for the stars as an e-commerce business in LED lightning. They position themselves as a LED specialist for both B2C and B2B markets, offering a full range of lighting solutions. Read how Ledloket tackled its purchasing challenges. And how they used data-driven purchasing to keep up with the trends in their sector, improve their purchasing operations and manage their stock.

Missing out on revenue

Ledloket is very much the story of young e-commerce entrepreneurs with an innovative and service-focused approach.

Timo Wiefferink, responsible for Ledloket’s purchasing, explains their growth ambitions came with challenges. “When I look at our purchasing process, we had multiple challenges to tackle to channel our growth. Our main purchasing challenge was the manual purchasing approach. It resulted in a lack of overview and made the whole process very time-consuming.”

Timo continues to explain why these challenges were critical for Ledloket. “In our business, many things were overlooked due to a lack of overview, resulting in wrong purchasing decisions. At times it happened that we had a lot of products arriving that were not even in demand.” Purchasing the wrong products was caused by the lack of insights Ledloket had into its product performance.

Timo acknowledges: “We were missing out on a lot of income because we did not purchase our most important products due to our inability to categorise our stock.” Ultimately, these situations were caused by the manual purchasing process of Ledloket. “With a ‘purchasing-by-feel’ approach, we lost a lot of money that we could have spent on the more important products within our range.”

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Since working with Optiply, our purchasing process is much more structured, less time-consuming and it ensures me to focus on more strategic tasks.

Address and tackle the critical challenges

For Timo and his fellow entrepreneurs, it was clear to address and tackle the critical challenges with innovation.

Timo tells what their first ‘win’ was by using Optiply. “First of all, Optiply structured our purchasing process. Using the supplier settings in the Optiply app allowed us to start purchasing via a fixed pattern. Additionally, Optiply showed us what products we had to buy and when and that was especially useful in case a product suddenly increased in sales.”

“Now we purchase with a more tactical approach. Fast-selling products are spotted earlier since the product performance is made visible via the Optiply app. With purchasing advice based on real-time data we have accurate insights into the performance of our products at any moment in time.”

For Timo and Ledloket, the data insights are a big win. “If we see that a product is selling well, we invest more in that product to increase our revenue.” Additionally, Ledloket’s stock management benefits from detailed data insights. Timo: “Since we work with Optiply, we have fewer funds tied up in excess stock.”
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Stock level dropped

The collaboration with Optiply enabled Ledloket to improve its stock management. Most notably, the total stock level has been brought down by 20%. This decrease mainly applies to the less impactful B and C category, which were brought down by 23% and 31%.

By contrast, the important A category only went down by 15%, which resulted in fewer lost sales (21% less) and revenue growth (40% more).

Improved purchasing structure with Optiply

The ability to categorise stock is an important improvement for Ledloket. Timo clarifies: “We know now that we purchase the right products at the right time.” Ledloket’s number of slow-moving products (category C products via the ABC Analysis) decreased significantly. “It allows us to purchase more products that have a bigger impact on our business’ revenue.”

Working with a data-driven purchasing tool that offers automation as a solution makes Timo a happy man. “Automation makes the purchasing process much easier and less time-consuming. I can shift my focus to work efficiently on higher-level tasks and structural solutions for our business challenges. In addition, I spend the remaining time monitoring the performance of our suppliers. To see if there is room for improvement and to make agreements with them.”

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3 results of the collaboration with Optiply

1. Ability to categorise products
2. Purchase via a structured pattern
3. Shift focus to strategic tasks

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Favourite Optiply features

Forecasting – “I rely on the Optiply app for its ability to create the best possible forecasts. We can reduce the threat of lost sales and improve communication with suppliers to inform them upfront about our planned purchases.”

Application Usability – “I like that I can do everything myself via Optiply, i.e. pass on data via the API and send emails from the application. Working this way saves me a lot of time.”