Liquid Action

It was winter and if Gary Sukovaty could get away, he’d be skiing in the Washington Cascades. Still, he was doing something he loved just as much: helping bring to market a range of products designed exactly for people like him.

Gary is a Co-founder of Earthwell, a Portland, Oregon company that designs and makes premium stainless steel drinkware for urban explorers and outdoor adventurers. Earthwell combines quality materials, proprietary designs, and vacuum insulation to bring to market rugged, drinkware bottles that adventurers can take with them anywhere.

Earthwell’s concern for people, community, and the natural environment stands at the forefront, and those values are reflected in Earthwell’s commitment to being a business member of 1% for the Planet and committing at least one percent of their annual sales to environmental causes. “Working with great people who enjoy and care for the outdoors is of utmost importance,” Gary said. “Participating in founding and building an outdoor brand and triple bottom line company is tremendously rewarding.”

“Seamlessly Connected” to Where the Action Is

Earthwell will officially go to market in Spring 2018. Part of Gary’s responsibilities, built on his long experience in the action sports and outdoor products sector, is to develop domestic and international markets. Earthwell is serving a USA retail channel, selling direct to consumers via its ecommerce website, reaching overseas customers through international distributors, and developing a co-brand channel. The company turned to Cin7 to help manage Earthwell’s multi-channel, multi-market strategy.

“It was critical to integrate our multi-channel strategy into one IMS. Our team is also geographically spread around, so cloud computing provides us with an optimal solution,” Gary said. “We found that accounting software solutions were good at what they do, but aren’t robust enough for the advanced inventory management and tracking we required.”

Cin7 “creatively addressed” those issues while offering flexibility for customization, all with a reasonable price-to-value structure and ongoing system updates.

“This allows us to incorporate just two operational platforms: QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Cin7, which are seamlessly connected,” Gary says. “The Cin7 team also has been excellent in helping Earthwell sync up automation with our 3PL warehouse provider.”

Built to Last

With Cin7 modules and integration, Earthwell merges its entire inventory and order processing into a single platform. Earthwell utilizes Cin7’s built-in CRM, makes heavy use of its inventory module and manages its direct-to-consumer orders via Shopify integration. In the near future, it also plans to use Cin7’s B2B portal for wholesale ecommerce and to take advantage of Cin7’s built-in EDI integrations.

“Cin7 will be our inventory control platform for at least the next five years, but the manner in which cloud innovation constantly evolves, it may be the perfect long-term solution for Earthwell.”