Learn how soccer protection equipment brand Storelli Sports leverages ShipBob’s automated B2B solution to navigate complex retailer EDI requirements.
Customer Profile
Storelli Sports creates soccer protection and performance gear that is long-lasting, innovative, and designed to level up your game. Founded by a team of 3 – a soccer player, a biophysics PhD, and a sports product engineer – Storelli combines science with expertise to deliver winning gloves, head guards, sliding shorts, recovery gear, and more. Every piece of equipment is meticulously crafted to solve physical problems of athletes so they can enjoy themselves to the fullest, and feature a durable, timeless design.
Key metrics
- 1 US ShipBob fulfilment centre
- 75% of business is B2B
- 13+ years of business
- 5+ retail partnerships
About Storelli Sports
In 2010, Claudio Storelli had a job that he liked and a hobby he loved. By day, he worked on Wall Street in the Finance sector, and in his spare time, he was an avid goalkeeper and soccer player.
At first, neither affected the other – but after a while, Claudio found himself constantly coming off the pitch with injuries that made it hard to do his job.
Rather than give up on the sport he loved, Claudio decided to use his entrepenurial skills to create his own solutions. He sought help from a sports product designer and a PhD biophysics to bring his vision for a sports protection equipment brand to life. Together, they founded Storelli Sports, and began developing soccer gear that would help the player perform at their best while staying safe on the field.
News of the brand’s quality products spread, and before long, Storelli became a thriving business. Today, customers can find Storelli products in major retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Amazon, as well as mom-and-pop shops across the US.
We sat down with Storelli Sports COO Tyler Stelter to discuss how Storelli Sports leverages ShipBob for fulfilment, including automated B2B to navigate EDI requirements and simplify retail distribution and dropshipping.
Finding the right B2B fulfilment partner
As told to ShipBob by Tyler Stelter, COO at Storelli Sports.
Storelli started fulfilment from a storage unit in Brooklyn. As we grew, it became too much for our team to handle and we partnered with our first 3PL. It was a good experience for us until our B2B business grew beyond their capabilities. It became too complex for them, and they struggled to fulfil large B2B orders for our retailers with demanding routing guidelines which subjected us to costly chargebacks. Worse yet, it caused a strain on our business and retail partnerships. Since we rely heavily on B2B channels, it was putting us at risk.
We started looking for a fulfilment partner that could support multichannel businesses like ours. We knew ShipBob had DTC mastered, but in talking with them, we discovered that they were investing heavily into B2B fulfilment as well.
We were impressed by the capabilities they developed, and we were excited about where they were going in the future. As a relatively young company ourselves, we felt ShipBob had the room to grow with us and ability to create the solutions that brands like ours need.
We also appreciated that ShipBob is approachable. Our interactions with their experts felt professional yet friendly, and they were genuinely invested in helping us find the best solution for our brand.
Navigating retailer EDI requirements with ease
When Storelli started 11 years ago, DTC and online marketplaces were not where they are now. Soccer is also a community-driven sport so retail partnerships were, and continue to be, important to stay top of mind to the consumer. So we knocked on retail doors in the early days and built partnerships that continue to this day.
As a result, our business is about 75% B2B. Some of that is through mom-and-pop sports retailers, some is with major retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Scheels, and Sports Endeavors, and of course we have grown with Amazon as well.
Each of these retailers has their own unique EDI requirements for B2B orders, and you cannot do business with them without complying with their specific rules. Luckily for us, ShipBob can accept, and adapt, to each individual retailer’s technical needs and requirements.
There are a lot of different routing guidelines and trading requirements, but ShipBob’s EDI integration makes it easy to handle them. It’s helpful for us to not have to worry about compliance issues on our B2B orders – especially when so much of our business relies on getting it right.
“ShipBob’s automated EDI solution decreases a lot of the workload on our team. Compared to manually processing each order, it is so much easier to click a button with ShipBob’s automated B2B solution, knowing that ShipBob will handle the entire process and get all the information where it needs to go.”
Tyler Stelter, COO at Storelli Sports
Solving problems with dependable and quick customer support
B2B is a hard business, and there’s always a lot of moving parts. That’s why it’s important for your fulfilment partner to have a customer support team that you can depend on, so when issues inevitably come up, your brand has someone that’s on the ball and can help resolve them quickly.
ShipBob’s customer support has been incredible. I love having a rep that I can email and get quick responses from, who can escalate issues as needed without us having to wait around for answers.
“ShipBob has always worked to support our business – not to just keep it. Despite any challenges we’ve faced, we have always felt like ShipBob prioritized our business, rather than theirs. They look to actually solve our problems, and as we continue to grow and scale, it’s been helpful to know we have a partner that’s on our side.”
Tyler Stelter, COO at Storelli Sports
Looking to the future
We think of our brand as the Lamborghini of soccer protection and performance gear – and to continue innovating long-lasting, high-quality products, we need to continue growing our brand.
Some key growth opportunities come in international markets, so we will rely on ShipBob to help us expand globally. We are also working on exciting new products to bring Storelli to more customers. Of course, we will keep nurturing our existing channels in the US and abroad.
We rely on key partners like ShipBob to allow us to stay laser-focused on our business development objectives, and with their help, we can worry less about fulfilment and more on growth.
Storelli Sports’ team at ShipBob
Sophie Skarzynski
Sophie is the Account Executive that helped Storelli Sports get started with ShipBob.
Aaditya Singh
Aaditya is part of ShipBob’s Merchant Care Team, and helps support Storelli Sports.
Guneet Mac
Guneet is a Product Manager at ShipBob, and helped fine-tune Storelli Sports’ EDI flow.
John George
John is part of ShipBob’s Merchant Success Team, and helps support Storelli Sports.
Eric Huppmann
Eric is an Implementation Consultant at ShipBob, and helped Storelli Sports enable EDI-automated B2B.
Sean Bellucci
Sean is a Supply Chain Innovation Manager at ShipBob, and helps support brands like Storelli Sports.
Get started with ShipBob
Want to improve your B2B ecommerce fulfilment strategy and scale your business? Discover if ShipBob is the right fit for your brand and request a B2B fulfilment quote below.
