ZonPrep recently spoke with the Front Row Group to get the scoop on how we’ve helped them better serve their brands, unlock Amazon Transparency, offer kits and bundles, and much more. Catch the recording and transcript below.
Before ZonPrep: legacy providers and a competitive RFP
What did Front Row’s prep and logistics setup look like before ZonPrep?
Dan Schulman: So prior to joining Front Row, and me making the operational change to engage ZonPrep, we had kind of a handful of small 3PLs that were just legacy, you know, working relationships. There were no contracts in place. We had kind of limited system integration. So, really just kind of like a hodgepodge mix of 3PL providers.
Even before that, they actually did a lot of the prep in-house. Like, they used to prep packages in the office when they were much smaller, you know, probably five to seven years ago. That’s, like, the beginning of the story, I guess.
But that’s really where it began: it was in-house, then they farmed it out to some smaller, kind of mom-and-pop 3PLs that pseudo-specialized in this. And then ultimately, you know, when I joined, we did a competitive RFP.
Before I joined Front Row, I worked in food distribution, so I worked in, like, very clean, very well-organized warehouses that met certain standards. I walked through our existing legacy provider, and I could argue it was just a really poorly run warehouse. It was physically filthy. There was very, very poor inventory management. End-of-month close would take almost, you know, into the next month to close. So the processes were just kind of very, you know, disorganized.
We gave that 3PL provider some, like, key feedback and, like, what I needed to see and make changes, and arguably they didn’t do any of them. So there was just kind of a lack of oomph and, you know, drive to drive change and kind of keep and earn our business. We bid it out to, you know, specialized 3PLs like ZonPrep and some others, and then some other just larger 3PLs in general.
And then their specialization and their pricing, you know, again, kind of shot them to the top of the list.
Why did ZonPrep win the RFP?
Dan Schulman: It was a competitive RFP, so we put together kind of an encompassing bid doc that looked at full-year volumes, our needs on a, you know, tech integration, insurance, warehouse cleanliness, throughput, and capacity-planning perspective.
So there was a myriad of, like, measurable metrics in there. Their network footprint, what they could do from a lead time and turnaround, what they could also internalize. What’s nice about ZonPrep is they’ve internalized a lot of the administrative functions that my team, like, historically owned, such as shipment creation.
So it allowed me to basically scale my team without adding additional headcount. So the internalization of the functionality, like, of the admin tasks really helped. Their working relationship with Amazon in terms of their inbound appointments and how fast they could turn product really helped.
And again, ultimately, like, when we looked at it from a pricing perspective, that really kind of set them apart.
Headcount and team capacity
In your estimate, how many full-time hires equate to ZonPrep’s role?
Dan Schulman: I’ve been able to reduce my headcount by one and a half. So I’ve been able to basically, you know, and that’s also while scaling and adding an additional 50 brands. So I’ve increased the company’s, the size of the brands by 50%, and I’ve gone down a person and a half, really.
A pretty meaningful improvement in our brands’ capacity, my team’s capacity. Like, the admin tasks are really, like, the button-clicking part of the job, right? So it’s allowed my team to act more strategically versus kind of living in Seller Central, you know, creating shipments ad nauseam.
What tasks are you now able to focus more on?
Dan Schulman: I think in general we are able to look more holistically at our brands, and look for areas to, you know, reduce middle-mile lead times, you know, getting product into market faster.
What can be shipped direct to, you know, FBA if we make some operational changes? We’ve also been able to improve packaging, right? So kind of in partnership with ZonPrep, my team’s been able to, you know, really kind of build, like, the business case now to, like, change packaging or improve packaging, because they can focus on, you know, the cost element to that versus working and living in Seller Central.
I still think the biggest thing is we’ve been able to add more brands without adding headcount. Even if they’re still doing, like, some admin work, they’re able to do more admin work for more brands, ’cause the nitty-gritty, you know, admin stuff, like, truly, like, setting up shipments: we’re not having to do that anymore.
Packaging, optimization, and the customer experience
How has working with ZonPrep improved your packaging process?
Dan Schulman: I think there’s been opportunities to reduce our VAS needs, right? So we look at some of our packaging from our brands.
It’s, you know, it’s meant for storefront presentations, right? It’s meant for, like, a brick-and-mortar store, not, you know, really to kind of survive, you know, e-commerce and distribution. So using the technology they have in-house, their shrink machines, their bubble wrap machines, we’ve been able to improve packaging performance without having to go back to the brand saying, “You need to make, like, a thicker-wall box,” right?
So we’ve been able to kind of take what they have and kind of modify it to be able to ship, you know, successfully without getting damaged. We’ve also used, you know, how pricing and how the ZonPrep process works to go back to our brands to, like, increase case-pack sizes, which has allowed us to kind of get to market faster, right?
As opposed to having to break down 100 little boxes, they break down one big box, right? So it’s improved, you know, the overall throughput and performance through ZonPrep, just kind of leveraging what they’re good at and leveraging the tech they have in-house.
Could you share more optimization examples?
Dan Schulman: Some of our powdered supplement brands, we’ve been able to leverage ZonPrep’s shrink wrap machines to reduce the physical geometry of the item, which has in turn reduced the FBA fees, which has then kind of impacted overall profitability of that brand. So, you know, that’s something we actually saw in-house when we were doing a tour.
We’re like, “Oh, this is a great idea, let’s go take it to some of our other brands.” So we’ve been able to, you know, use the physical process they have in-house to kind of reduce our pricing architecture, you know, both on the FBA side and then with our brand side.
Probably not to Kayvon’s, you know, profitability model, but we’ve used his cross-dock features to go back to some of our brands to basically say, you know, instead of having to crack open, you know, multiple little cases, if we could repack this, we could cross-dock it and go direct to Amazon versus having to kind of go through the VAS processes in-house.
So because he offers, you know, straight cross-docking versus, you know, getting into the product, we’ve been able to leverage those cross-dock physical flows to the building a little more aggressively.
How has this impacted customer experience?
Dan Schulman: As we think about our physical bundling and what we can do to prep items to reduce damages, we’ve leaned on their tech and their processes, like their physical processes, to improve the customer experience.
We see a lot of leaking products, a lot of shampoos that didn’t have a seal cap on them. You know, our previous provider didn’t have the tech and the capacity to keep up with it, so we’re able to leverage their throughput capacity and their tech in-house to, you know, better protect our items, which lowers our damage rates, improves the customer experience, and makes everyone happy.
Especially for our premier products, right?
Some of our high-dollar-value items, we’ll do, you know, we’ll just shrink wrap it to protect the packaging. It’s, you know, it’s a beautiful package. We don’t want it to get all dinged up in transit. So we take advantage of what they have from a capabilities standpoint to really protect and ensure the customer, you know, gets a nice, you know, beautiful item.
Speed, cross-dock, and inventory
How does your cross-dock strategy with ZonPrep compare to your previous process?
Dan Schulman: If you look at some of our bigger brands, if we had to get into, like, a VAS, for example, like we have to do, you know, FNSKU-ing or some, like, item-level prep, you know, you’re, you know, let’s say four to five days between, kind of like, you know, wall-to-wall. Now with the cross-dock, it’s receive it in one door.
They, you know, they create the shipments, they slap a label on the outside. It’s kind of back out the door within, you know, maybe two days. So you’ve reduced, like, the wall-to-wall time physically in ZonPrep, you know, by two to five days, kind of depending on, you know, how big the production run is.
And then ultimately that nets down to reductions in overall middle-mile lead times as well.
How has this affected your days on hand?
Dan Schulman: We averaged 90 days on hand across the business. Now we’re down to, like, the 70s. Like, low 70s. So, you know, that’s a substantial reduction in days on hand.
How has ZonPrep simplified transparency labeling?
Dan Schulman: This is a great unlock for us.
You know, historically, before we had ZonPrep pulling the codes for us, it was kind of like we were the middleman. So we would know, this SKU, we wanna do 10,000 transparency codes. My team or someone on, like, the Front Row team has to go in, request the code, send the CSV file over to ZonPrep, for ZonPrep to print the codes, right?
So, like, we added an extra, like, layer of complexity. Now, we’ve granted them access to our transparency portal. So as we need it, they just pull the codes ad hoc as needed. Plus, we’re only pulling exactly what we need for that production run. Before, we would buy, like, a block of codes, but now we’re only purchasing the codes we need for that given production run.
And again, they handle that task. You’re not waiting for someone at Front Row to provide the codes. As they come in, it just continues to reduce those wall-to-wall times.
Technology, visibility, and integration
Beyond transparency, what else has ZonPrep enabled?
Dan Schulman: It’s full PO visibility, so, like, we know where any of our items are kind of at any given point in the middle-mile supply chain now. It’s visibility we never had. And it really allows us to really track a PO from us issuing it to the customer. ZonPrep handles the bulk of our pickups.
We know when the items are getting picked up and tendered, when it’s delivered, when it’s through, you know, the various process buckets within their building. So if it gets hung up somewhere, we’ve got the ability to kind of see that it’s getting hung up, and we can kind of deep dive it.
But it just allows us to know, you know, where our product is at any given time. And then, you know, at any given time, we can challenge ZonPrep on it, and, you know, they can prioritize product above others. It allows us to be very strategic in how we deploy our inventory.
And the tech and the integration is something we’ve never had.
We’ve always kind of had these, like, hodgepodge systems, and now with that, we’re unlocking a lot of other abilities to track cost, lead times, and just kind of inventory awareness.
How has your partnership evolved in terms of technology?
Dan Schulman: I would think just the evolution of, you know, our inventory tracking from, yeah, a manual Google Sheet to now, like, a fully integrated back-end system, you know, using an API, you know, data-transfer mechanism.
I think that’s probably the best highlight of, like, the partnership and the dual investment, right? Like, it’s taken us dev hours to get everything figured out. You guys have spent dev hours on it.
You know, it’s a service offering that I don’t know how many 3PLs have, especially kind of given all of the functionality you own for us.
Cash flow and cost savings
How has working with ZonPrep impacted Front Row’s cash flow?
Dan Schulman: We’ve reduced that middle mile by roughly 10 to 14 days.
Across our entire company, that’s a pretty large unlock in terms of free cash. And that’s allowed us to make, you know, sizable investments back into Front Row’s operating model.
Alexandra Carmody: On our client side, and where it’s been super helpful, with saying we can cut down the lead time of, like, launching transparency, doing the additional labeling and so forth.
One, it gives us a better leg to stand on to pitch that program and have it make sense to a brand. But, you know, to increase the Buy Box from, say, 60% on a given SKU across maybe one of our tier-one brands to then have it be, like, a full 90%, that’s anywhere from, like, let’s say $10,000 in savings upwards of, like, $150K depending on the brand.
So that can be really crucial. From an operating expense perspective, where we can save those dollars is great, but on the brand side, that’s really where we win, is that increase to revenue within the channel. Because then it ultimately means more goods flowing through ZonPrep at the end of the day.
What cost savings has ZonPrep delivered?
Dan Schulman: Prior to engaging ZonPrep to now, we’ve reduced our value-added services on a cost-per-unit by roughly 27%. Obviously, it’s a blended average across our entire book of business, but, you know, prior to now it’s, you know, roughly down 27% on a per-unit basis.
How has ZonPrep impacted your Amazon inbound costs and process?
Dan Schulman: Legacy-wise, we would… obviously, we would take the hit on the placement fees, right? Holistically, by using ZonPrep, we’ve driven our placement fees down 50%. The units that flow through ZonPrep, we’ve taken them down to zero.
The Front Row Hub: one order, one PO, one destination
How has ZonPrep helped improve logistics for your customers?
Dan Schulman: We sell our operational model as, like, the Front Row Hub now, right? So we’ve really kind of put it in front of our clients, especially during new brand pitches, of it’s one order, one PO, one destination, right?
So no longer are we asking brands to kind of split orders, send stuff to Amazon, send stuff over here. It makes it unnecessarily complicated for them, and our goal is to kind of minimize the impact. So the relationship that we have with ZonPrep has really allowed us to kind of leverage that ease of working with us in a stronger manner, right?
It’s that Front Row Hub mentality that not only does… If you’re doing international launches, for example, everything still flows through ZonPrep. We handle export from there. We go direct out. If we’re doing all US, it all goes to ZonPrep. They handle it out from there. So it’s allowed us to tell our team, as we, you know, pitch a brand, whatever complications they’re going through now, they go away.
A 3PL warehouse that works with a brand is really good at shipping orders to one destination. Once you start asking them to kind of divvy it up across, you know, a dozen different destinations, everything has to be labeled specifically. It just fails wide open.
This allows them to kind of fall back on, like, a standard operating model: one destination, one PO. And it just makes it that much easier for our brand to kind of figure it out.
Alexandra Carmody: Our brands who are in a high-growth mode or a high-growth phase often have one person being a liaison to an internal warehouse.
So the fact that we would go from, you know, having 18 different shipping locations to then just saying, like, “Hey, we’re gonna bring it in to our 3PL partner, and they’re gonna do all of your kits there. We’re gonna do transparency labeling there. We’re gonna do anything else additional. Then we’re gonna get it out to FBA in the same amount of time,” if not even quicker than what their warehouse could probably do: that’s been our biggest win.
Whether it’s a new prospect or an existing brand, that’s really where we’ve been able to have that kind of clear line of communication on both sides.
Dan Schulman: Yeah, it makes us feel like we have our own warehouse, right? Like, where I think other accelerators, you know, have built that capability, we have partnered with the best, and it’s become kind of a pseudo-extension of us.
How has your partnership with ZonPrep changed your approach to kitting and bundling?
Dan Schulman: We’ve taken the, you know, compensatory measures on our products that we might not have done kind of given the limitations of our previous provider. So we’ve leveraged y’all’s throughput and hardware more efficiently, and I think, you know, in a deeper way than we would’ve, you know, with our other, you know, our other providers.
Yeah. We also couldn’t prioritize bundles. Like, it was, like, pick one or the other. Now we can throw 10 brands and 10 different bundle types at, you know, y’all, and you have enough capacity to handle it.
How has ZonPrep helped your customers become more competitive?
Dan Schulman: We’ve been able to create Amazon-exclusive bundles, which has allowed us to set different offerings on Amazon and not be hamstrung by potential suppression from in-store pricing or promotion. So we’ve been able to create Amazon-exclusive kits and bundles that aren’t sold anywhere else.
So then we don’t get hit by, oh, XYZ has a 20%-off coupon, now we lose the Buy Box or we’re suppressed. We have very unique bundles, like, you know, exclusive for Amazon. And that’s also allowed us to kind of test the market too. Like, we’ve been able to kind of, you know, create: is a two-pack the right one?
Is it a three-pack? We can do A/B testing and kind of figure that out. And then once we land on that, you know, given ZonPrep’s kind of capacity, we can, you know, do a real fast follow and do, like, a pretty large production order based on what the market is telling us.
Alexandra Carmody: A lot of our brands are, you know, they’re hero-SKU D2C brands.
So being able to have a differentiation of not only just Amazon exclusives, but also saying, like, “Okay, you don’t have a robust new product development calendar. That’s fine. We can come up with three new kits or bundles that we think make sense within the channel based off of data that we see.” And then the brand can take over, you know, more of page-one search results for branded terms and really kind of own the channel and not just be a hero-SKU-focused brand.
Finding those opportunities to then have growth SKUs that are specific within the channel also helps us to go back to a brand and say, “Put this on your D2C site. You can also still use ZonPrep if you want to.” Or “Hey, this would work on Walmart, it would work on TikTok Shop, and it’s already differentiated.”
Those sorts of conversations are what we’re now realizing we can unlock because we’ve established that, like, level of trust in the last, you know, two years in working across the teams.
Working with the ZonPrep team
What is it like working with the ZonPrep team?
Dan Schulman: They’re true subject-matter experts in, you know, the services they provide.
So I think there’s been a healthy partnership. I think there’s been, you know, lessons learned, some, you know, some strong ways of working that we’ve kind of had to figure out as we’ve built the partnership and the working relationship. But I think arguably it works as an extension of Front Row. You know, they are our exclusive provider.
So we’ve been able to kind of fully integrate our systems. We’ve been able to really kind of streamline our operations. And, you know, Quady’s been great to work with. Kayvon, you know, when he was a little more hands-on, was, you know, really in the weeds with us. I know Ryan on the ZonPrep team from account management: you know, my team loves…
They talk to Ryan on a daily basis. They’re like, they text and call. So, like, they’ve become part of the Front Row family.
What have you learned together as partners?
Dan Schulman: You know, there’s been good lessons learned as to, like, how do we push, you know, how do we onboard new clients to make sure they’re set up for success, right? Making sure that ZonPrep has the right information, you know, from the get-go.
I think there’s been challenging ways of working as business models have, you know, evolved. You know, it’s taken, you know, top-to-top alignments to make sure we are kind of walking, you know, hand in hand through the business. And, you know, as our business has ebbed and flowed, we have to make sure that ZonPrep’s along, you know, for the ride with us.
They’ve given us healthy pushback, but I think that’s what a partnership is, that I think we’ve worked well together as the business has evolved.
What would you tell other founders about ZonPrep?
Dan Schulman: In general, like, they have set themselves apart from being, like, true experts in this field, right?
I’ve been happy to discuss how well they’ve worked for us with brands that I know are talking to ZonPrep. We’ve obviously engaged, you know, multiple 3PL providers that kind of do this work. You know, doing this work and doing this work right are far different things.