Cin7 enables seamless new market expansion for GROF

GROF USA has streamlined the steps needed to process orders through its distribution center. The GROF teams says that “Cin7 has automated our backend processes, eliminating the need for consultants to perform tedious one-by-one manual tasks.”

From the beginning, the Cin7 team worked to ensure the platform made life easier for GROF USA. Cin7 worked closely with the founding team to understand which processes created inefficiencies so that they could build workflows that allowed for more streamlined inventory management.

For GROF USA, order processing was turning into an operations bottleneck. Orders can have anywhere from one to 500 SKUs. Before Cin7, sending orders from stores to the distribution center was completely manual. Often, design consultants at the retail stores had to type everything in, which left orders vulnerable to human error and processing delays.

Cin7 fixed this issue for GROF USA with the Smart Buyer feature. GROF stated, “Cin7’s features are so efficient that with a single button click, orders are created and all information seamlessly flows into other systems. This ensures that both store and backend operations continue smoothly without interruptions.”

With Cin7’s help, GROF USA built more efficient workflows, which helped them replicate the brand’s early success by continuing to scale in the U.S. market.

Since starting to work with Cin7, the company has opened a new store every year, leading to a total of three luxury retail locations and distribution centers in the D.C. Metro Area Market. The process of adding a new store in Cin7 is simple for GROF USA.

“Opening a new store is a breeze; it’s as simple as copy-and-paste.”

Opening new showrooms and retail locations is only the start of GROF USA’s success in the U.S. GROF USA is proud to highlight its consistent growth and strengthening market position with each new location, solidifying its presence as a leading luxury retailer in the industry.

GROF USA uses Cin7 to manage over 70,000 SKUs and automate inventory processes between its distribution centers, showrooms, and retailers. By leveraging Connected Inventory Performance, GROF USA has more time to focus on opening new retail locations and scaling their growth year after year.

When you visit one of GROF USA’s showrooms in the Washington, D.C., area, you’re immediately surrounded by beautiful displays of luxurious bathroom and kitchen designs that spark ideas for your own dream home spaces. And inspiration is just the start of the experience.

Whether you’re looking for kitchen and bath products, stylish tiles, custom-made kitchen cabinets, or interior doors, GROF USA has the products and expertise to turn your dream spaces into a reality. The high-end luxury distributor of kitchen and bath products works with consultants, designers, homeowners, and architects to craft unique spaces that match their customer’s desires.

GROF USA now sells through multiple channels, including a Shopify store and retail showrooms that are serviced by a distribution center, which all work together to deliver high-end kitchens and bathrooms, tiles, and much more to customers.

When opening the first U.S. location, GROF USA needed the right software to serve as the core of the business. While the teams previously used another solution to power their inventory, that solution presented limitations when it came to scaling abroad.

They needed an inventory solution that was:

• Highly customizable
• Budget-friendly
• User-friendly and easy to learn

GROF USA was looking for the best software solutions and learned about Cin7’s expansion to the U.S. After meeting with Cin7’s team, GROF USA was impressed by Cin7’s dedication to helping customers grow and became one of Cin7’s early customers.

The team explains, “We value relationships and can easily discern genuine support from mere business transactions. With Cin7, it was evident they were dedicated to our success, and we felt assured by their young team’s readiness to assist us.” From the start, Cin7’s user-friendliness impressed the GROF USA team. Thanks to Cin7’s straightforward processes, they were able to get the U.S. operations up and running quickly.

“Uploading our product catalogs with Cin7 was effortless, and now updating our pricing is incredibly quick.”

For a company with over 70,000 SKUs, the ability to easily upload and update the product catalog was a must-have for GROF USA.

In addition to providing seamless inventory management for GROF USA’s product catalog, Cin7’s user-friendly platform makes it easy to bring new team members up to speed. 

The GROF team says, “New employees can quickly get up to speed and start offering our products to customers in no time.”

While Cin7 made it easy for GROF USA to start operations and allowed them to quickly onboard new people, the quality of Cin7’s support has been crucial to GROF USA’s continued success.

In a time when customer support is often relegated to robotic phone calls, GROF USA especially appreciates Cin7’s people-first approach to client relationships. When anyone on GROF USA’s team needs assistance, they can rest assured that they’ll be able to connect with a real person at Cin7 who’s dedicated to finding a solution.

“Cin7’s support team is always available to lend a hand and guide us through any issues.”

Working closely with members of Cin7’s team has helped GROF USA get the most out of the feature-rich platform, especially its native integrations and automation capabilities. Fast forward five years after the launch, and GROF USA now uses Cin7 to automate time-consuming, multistep processes that were previously performed manually.

While opening new stores creates the possibility of complicated operations, Cin7 makes it simple for GROF USA to manage multiple locations. In particular, Cin7’s application programming interface (API) documentation is “incredibly straightforward and easy to integrate into.”

This ease of use is crucial for GROF USA because it allows them to accommodate new growth without creating inefficiencies that would slow them down. The team can continue to customize the solution, including integrating their own program for reporting shipments and key performance indicators across branches.

Another Cin7 feature that has helped GROF USA scale with ease is the platform’s ability to consolidate the inventory and sales data from several retail channels and locations.

Instead of having to go through each location one by one, GROF USA’s team can see all of the data in one spot, making it easy to know exactly where the company stands and create accurate forecasts.

Equally important to the team’s success with Cin7 is the platform’s ability to work seamlessly with other providers in GROF USA’s tech stack. Using Cin7’s native integrations with other software providers, GROF USA can work with other tools that help them grow, whether that’s in logistics, finances, sales, or marketing. GROF USA uses Cin7’s integrations with Shopify, ShipStation, and Mailchimp to power their growth, both by supporting new locations and bringing in more clients.

In addition to automating heavily manual processes and enabling growth at scale, Cin7 gave GROF USA full inventory visibility, which enabled them to improve the customer experience. With Cin7, GROF USA’s team has real-time insight into crucial inventory data, such as quantities in stock, what’s being picked, and what’s being sold.

“Cin7 has helped us track the sale of each item from its date, even down to the second. We’re able to make decisions based on a second’s perspective.”

This level of insight into the inventory cycle has also enabled more powerful data-driven decision-making. GROF USA explains, “We live in an era where everyone expects immediate results. Previously, if we had only one or two items left, we couldn’t track them effectively, leading to numerous customer issues and complaints.”

As a high-end luxury retailer, GROF USA needs to have a top-notch shopping experience.

After implementing Cin7, GROF USA hasn’t had any complaints stemming from a lack of inventory visibility. The Cloud-based solution lets the team access the same real-time information no matter where they’re located. “No matter which of our stores you’re in, you’ll see the same real-time data as everyone else. That has been incredibly beneficial.”

Looking back, GROF USA sees Cin7 as an essential element to its success in the U.S. When asked if they would recommend Cin7 to other businesses, they wholeheartedly say, “Yes.” They go on to say, “Without Cin7, we don’t think we would be here. It would take much longer to execute any new training, implementation, or structure.”