Performance Brands Australia grows with Cin7

When Samuel Gowland took Performance Brands Australia in hand, he turned it into Australia’s—and New Zealand’s—leading golf and sports equipment importer and distributor with the help of Cin7 and implementation partner Techweave.

A seasoned executive with over 15 years of strategic leadership experience, Gowland acquired Performance Brands Australia in 2023 with a vision for growth. However, he soon discovered that the company’s operations were caught in a sand trap that would challenge even the most skilled business player.

“We were embedded in a proprietary system that the 3PL company had developed, so we had our inventory in one software, our accounting in Xero, and the two didn’t speak.”

His small but powerful team of five was stuck in the rough, replicating functions, manually entering shipping orders, entering orders to invoice them, and in between, attempting to accurately track inventory. Topping off their technology challenges, Samuel was moving the Melbourne-based business—and warehouse—to Sydney.

It was, according to Samuel, a tipping point.

He needed a new inventory solution, preferably one that catered to small businesses. His search led him to Cin7 and partner Techweave.

Reading the green, taking the shot

Just as elite golfers study the green’s slope and break before a putt, Samuel carefully evaluated his options.

“I had heard good things about Cin7 along the way, and then when I met Gregg Mackinder from Techweave, it all kind of came together,” Samuel explains. “Cin7 felt intuitive, and it felt user friendly. And the confirmation to proceed came when I learned that one of my largest customers also uses Cin7.”

On May 1, 2024, Performance Brands happily hit the go-live button, thanks to Gregg’s hands-on, personal approach. Samuel recalls, “We made it fun. I had my kids here and Gregg had his kids here for a few days. I think we had a good time and experience.”

The few challenges they encountered along the way didn’t throw Samuel and Gregg off their game.

Working as a team, Samuel and Gregg adjusted their stance according to each unexpected hurdle by setting Performance Brands up with streamlined workflows and ensuring integrations were on point. The first week after implementation saw them receive, enter, and ship several hundred orders—a birdie in the business world.

“It was the first time I had done this as a new business owner, and obviously there were a lot of nerves and unknown scenarios around that. Ultimately, you look back and the implementation was seamless.”

Hitting the green with Cin7

Now that Performance Brands is fully onboarded with Cin7, Performance Brands is taking advantage of Cin7’s seamless integration with Xero, and the company has successfully connected three websites: Samuel’s own WooCommerce site and two external customers’ Shopify sites.

Though not par for the course, he explains that Performance Brands essentially functions as a 3PL for these two international brands, with Samuel’s team picking, packing, and shipping for the brands while the customers’ teams manage their own e-commerce activities. Performance Brands also acts as the international brands’ business-to-business (B2B) distributor to golf retailers.

This “hybrid arrangement” led to some unique accounting challenges, which Samuel credits Techweave’s Head of Technology, Adam Stead, with fixing.

But Techweave had more tricks up their sleeves.

“With techweave’s experience, they created a special fulfillment process just for us.”

Offering superlative fulfillment services in addition to their own successful direct sales plus connecting all their systems through Cin7 is what Samuel calls an “absolute benefit.”

“Before, there was too much human input and reliance on people to confirm stock levels and accuracy of information. Having it all housed in one ecosystem is definitely an advantage.”

Driving forward with Cin7

Samuel and his team are reaching new levels of efficiency, effectively addressing issues with Cin7 and freeing up Samuel to invest in forward-facing activities.

“Now that we have Cin7 in place, my core focus is on our EDM, social, and digital marketing efforts.”

Like any savvy business leader, Samuel studies the ins-and-outs of marketing. He believes that the direct-to-consumer (D2C) business model may continue to rise in popularity, so he’s confidently leaning on Cin7 to help him strategically serve and support brands in the industry to generate additional revenue in the future.

“I definitely feel like we’re in a much better position than where we were and has added value to the business by having a more sophisticated tech stack in place.”

Though just teeing off with Cin7, Performance Brands is employing cycle count functionality for inventory transparency and planning to connect additional Shopify websites in the future. Performance Brands, as the #1 importer of golf training aids into Australia, is playing at peak performance and plans to stay that way with the full support of the Cin7 team.