Posted by Maggie Miller, Senior Commerce Content Manager

When the Kline family moved their home textile company VHC Brands to Branson, Missouri in the ‘90s, they thought their biggest concern would be tornadoes. But in October 2016, a fire sparked in the warehouse filled with blankets, pillows and rugs and everything went up in flames. “We were totally gone,” said Ken Kline, CEO of VHC Brands.

But the company didn’t miss an order. The team was back in business three days later from a temporary office space because they were on NetSuite’s cloud-based business management software.

“There’s no way we could have come back from that without everything on NetSuite,” said Kline. “Not only are we surviving since that event, but we’ve rebuilt the warehouse and business is thriving.”

VHC Brands has experienced many other benefits since trading in its legacy, siloed systems for the NetSuite unified cloud commerce system to run its financials, accounting, inventory and order management, and B2B ecommerce.

Evolving the Online Buying Experience

Selling to a wide range of buyers including small independent shops to large retailers like Wayfair, Walmart, HSN, Overstock.com and Amazon, it was important for the company to create a rich online experience with features that cater to all its buyers.

In conjunction with NetSuite Commerce Agency Partner, Tavano Team, VHC Brands has updated its online store, vhcbrands.com, and provides the B2C-like experience their B2B buyers expect.

Buyers can log into the site and see custom account pricing, inventory availability, generate quotes, place orders, pre-order items and get access to resources including images and product data for retailers to use for their websites and catalogs. The site management tools make it easy for the web team to maintain and update the site.

The SuiteCommerce Advanced website has also empowered its sales team. With real-time data on a customer’s browsing history and what’s in their shopping carts, sales reps can have a more productive, informative conversation with their customers. This creates a concierge-like customer experience which leads to more sales.

Real-Time Inventory Visibility and Seamless Shipping 

VHC Brands now has real-time inventory visibility across its warehouse in Missouri and manufacturing center in India which allows the company to efficiently manage its products.

“I can get a full 360-degree view of the entire company at the click of a button,” said Candy Loehr, VHC Brands, Logistics and Compliance Manager. “At a glance, I can see what products I have and where they are.”

Loehr especially likes NetSuite’s robust reporting on orders, sales and products. This allows her to plan what products they need from the factory and even stop production of merchandise that’s not selling well.

NetSuite has also helped VHC Brands grow its drop ship business tremendously. Fulfilling about 300 drop ship orders a day, the company is able to process the volume seamlessly with NetSuite and its EDI integration partner SPS Commerce. With “click and go” pick, pack and ship, functionality provided by OzLink, the company can now offer same or next day delivery to its network of thousands of retail partners.

Streamlined Custom Ordering Program

VHC Brands offers a custom program for buyers who want to put their product ideas into production. Before NetSuite, tracking those details meant chasing down a paper trail of emails in multiple inboxes. Now, the customer and sales information is captured in NetSuite, which gives everyone access to information about production and streamlines the entire process.