In this article, discover Novoma’s impressive journey from modest vitamin C powder sales to a major e-commerce player in the dietary supplements sector.
Novoma, an e-commerce company specializing in natural food supplements, is a flourishing and lucrative business, with sales of 13 million euros and continuing growth. Thanks to its expansion, it now enjoys an enviable reputation in its sector. A key factor in its success is its ability to innovate and anticipate market needs. By placing logistics at the heart of its strategy, Novoma has turned challenges into opportunities, leveraging its operational efficiency to build customer loyalty and remain competitive in a highly competitive e-commerce market. In this way, logistics has become an essential pillar of its success, helping to consolidate its position as an industry leader. In this article, Lucas Pinos, CEO of Novoma, traces the company’s development and shares valuable advice for entrepreneurs.
Introducing Novoma
Novoma was founded in 2012, the brainchild of two young entrepreneurs who were business school students at the time. Their adventure began modestly with the sale of powdered vitamin C, an unusual form for dietary supplements, generally consumed in capsules. This original idea came to them when they realized the prohibitive cost of vitamin C in pharmacies, and they chose to offer an affordable alternative, selling the product at 40 euros per kilogram to individuals.
Their beginnings were humble, filling jars in one of them’s mother’s kitchen in the evenings, with homemade labels and a very basic website that cost them just 5 euros a month. Despite these Spartan conditions, within the first year they were achieving sales of between 4 and 5,000 euros a month, a real success for entrepreneurs of their age. Over the years, they have structured their offer, moving from a range limited to single-ingredient products to a wider, more sophisticated range, always with the ambition of maintaining high quality and accessibility.
Expanding onto Amazon in 2017 marked a significant logistical turning point, opening them up to a much larger market and enabling them to store and ship their products using Amazon’s logistics. Today, Novoma is a solid legal entity enjoying explosive growth, not least thanks to their responsiveness to global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw strong demand for their immune health products. They are targeting sales of 13 million euros this year, thanks to their presence on various sales channels, including Amazon and their own Shopify site.
The rapid expansion of their business has also brought considerable logistical challenges. To meet these, they have just signed a lease for a 700 square meter warehouse, marking a crucial step in the evolution of their logistics infrastructure. This will enable them to better meet the growing needs of their customers and support their future development.
The transition to in-house logistics: a key step
For Novoma, the decision to re-insource logistics marked a crucial turning point. By regaining control of its distribution and customer service operations, the company not only strengthened its ability to personalize its services, but also optimized its operational efficiency.
Why outsource your logistics?
Novoma chose to re-engineer its logistics for a number of key reasons, not least of which was to increase control and personalization of shipment management and customer satisfaction. Previously, the company outsourced the management of its stocks and shipments, which included taking charge of deliveries for all products sold, including those ordered via its own website. However, this system had certain limitations, such as the challenges of controlling product presentation and packaging quality. These factors sometimes resulted in the receipt of products whose packaging did not meet the quality standards expected by the company and its customers.
Faced with these challenges, Novoma tried working with a traditional logistician which, despite a rewarding human relationship and the possibility of managing shipments more directly, proved complex in terms of technical integration. Switching to a more technology-oriented logistician certainly solved interface and integration problems, but it also reduced flexibility in order control. This loss of flexibility is problematic, especially when it comes to responding rapidly to specific customer requests.
The decision to re-insource logistics came from the need to overcome these obstacles and maximize the personalization of the customer experience. By insourcing, Novoma was able not only to improve the quality of its delivery service, but also to reduce its logistics costs. By managing its own logistics, Novoma was able to offer targeted promotions, use customized, eco-responsible packaging, and respond flexibly to the distinct needs of the B2B and B2C markets.
Ultimately, this transition to in-house logistics management has enabled Novoma to fully control its distribution process, from stock receipt to customer delivery. This control includes the management of specific promotions, enhancing the personalization of customer service and optimizing the efficiency of operations.
How do you internalize your logistics?
When it comes to internalizing logistics, a company like Novoma needs to approach this transition with great care, so as not to compromise the customer experience. This requires careful planning and the adoption of new skills, often far removed from the traditional fields of marketing or sales management that predominate in the e-commerce sector. To begin with, Novoma needs to ensure the relevance of insourcing by assessing existing capabilities and future needs.
This includes the right sizing of the warehouse, taking into account not only current needs, but also those of the years to come, in order to avoid frequent and costly moves, which can disrupt operations. Recruitment also plays a crucial role. Novoma had to expand its team by hiring atypical profiles for the sector, such as warehouse managers and order pickers.
This diversification of profiles requires not only appropriate training, but also a strategy to build loyalty, especially in a context where staff turnover can be high and applicants less qualified than in other sectors. Warehouses must be strategically located, close to main roads and carriers, to facilitate shipments. Late discovery of constraints such as access blocked by outside vehicles, as happened with Novoma, can lead to unexpected complications. A detailed preliminary site analysis is therefore essential.
As far as equipment investments are concerned, these should be seen as long-term fixed assets. Novoma has invested in specific equipment such as storage racks and pallet trucks, essential for product handling. The choice of consumables suppliers, such as carton types, also has a significant impact on customer perception of quality. To meet these challenges, expert support is essential. Novoma benefited from Shippingbo’s experience and support, which facilitated the training and adaptation of its teams to these new functions.
Shippingbo: SaaS software provider for e-commerce logistics
Shippingbo, a SaaS software publisher dedicated to e-commerce logistics, plays a crucial role for companies seeking to optimize their operations. This technology player has developed a software suite comprising three key modules: the Order Management System (OMS), the Warehouse Management System (WMS) and the Transport Management System (TMS). Shippingbo’s OMS, with over 120 connectors integrated with various sales platforms, including major marketplaces and content management systems, enables efficient centralization of orders.
This functionality ensures real-time synchronization of incoming orders, whatever their source, facilitating more fluid and responsive logistics management. As far as the WMS is concerned, Shippingbo adapts its functionalities to companies’ specific internal logistics requirements. Shippingbo’s system facilitates order preparation through automated, customized processes. These processes are adapted to the requirements of different sales channels and to the specificities of picking sessions, improving the speed and accuracy of order processing.
Finally, Shippingbo’s TMS streamlines shipment management by developing connections with over 50 carriers. This system not only enables efficient preparation of shipments, but also customization of shipping labels and optimization of transport costs. Automated shipment tracking and real-time status updates provide total transparency for both the company and the consumer.
By integrating these three systems, Shippingbo offers a complete solution that facilitates the automation and optimization of logistics processes, enabling companies to focus on growth and improve the customer experience.
Logistics, a marketing asset for Novoma
For Novoma, logistics transcends its traditional function to become a central pillar of their marketing strategy. By optimizing every stage of the logistics process, Novoma not only improves its operational efficiency, it actively transforms these improvements into competitive advantages to attract and retain customers.
Customer acquisition
For Novoma, optimized logistics management is not just an operational imperative; it’s also a powerful driver of customer acquisition. By internalizing their logistics, Novoma has been able to focus on shipping speed, a crucial requirement in the competitive world of e-commerce, particularly on demanding platforms such as Amazon. By committing to ship the majority of orders the same day, whether during sales periods or seasonal troughs, Novoma has set a high standard of performance.
This ability to guarantee such short lead times, often less than half a day, sets Novoma apart from many competitors, including industry giants who struggle to offer such responsiveness. This level of service not only ensures immediate customer satisfaction, but also plays a decisive role in their purchasing decisions, particularly when they are in a hurry or faced with a choice between several suppliers.
Novoma has achieved this efficiency through careful planning and strategic management of human resources, doubling the number of pickers during peak periods such as Mondays, when orders accumulated over the weekend require rapid attention. In addition, the adoption of advanced technologies such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) has further streamlined preparation and dispatch processes, reducing delays and potential errors.
Novoma’s logistics strategy is not limited to operational efficiency; it is integrated with their marketing approach, offering a variety of delivery options to meet the diverse needs of their customers. This diversification ensures that every customer finds a delivery solution that suits them, reinforcing Novoma’s appeal as the preferred choice among its competitors.
Customer loyalty
Shippingbo sets itself apart by transforming logistics into a powerful lever for customer loyalty. The solution relies on proactive communication with customers via SMS and e-mail notifications at every stage of the logistics process, from order preparation to delivery. This strategy significantly reduces customer frustration by reassuring them about the status of their order, offering the transparency that has become essential to the online shopping experience.
What’s more, Shippingbo enriches this experience by personalizing messages, strengthening the bond between brand and customer. This personalization is crucial, especially for companies that also operate on marketplaces and want to stand out from the crowd. SMS, in particular, offers a direct marketing touch that can redirect customers to specific online stores, increasing the chances of re-purchasing directly from the brand rather than via intermediaries. Shippingbo’s after-sales service also plays a key role in this loyalty strategy.
Thanks to efficient returns management, often problematic in sectors such as fashion where returns of several sizes are frequent, Shippingbo helps companies limit these costs and complexities. This logistical support is seamlessly integrated, enabling customers to benefit from a less cluttered, more efficient after-sales service. The combination of these efforts creates an end-to-end value chain that not only satisfies customers before they’ve even experienced the product, but also encourages brand recommendation.
Global KPIS
The implementation of an effective logistics strategy at Novoma has generated remarkable results, measured through various key performance indicators (KPIs). Firstly, the company has seen an impressive 100% growth in order volume between 2022 and 2023, testifying to the effectiveness of their decision to re-engineer their logistics. This growth is not limited to B2C, but also extends to B2B, reflecting the scalability and flexibility of the system implemented.
In particular, with Shippingbo’s help, Novoma was able to significantly increase its order processing capacity, from 50-60 orders per day to peaks of 400 daily orders. During one particular promotion, the company even processed up to 1,200 orders in just a day and a half, a performance that far exceeded the initial planned capacities. One of the most critical aspects, order preparation time, was kept to less than a day, even during periods of high demand such as Black Friday.
This ability to meet deadlines, even under pressure, sets Novoma apart from its competitors and enhances customer satisfaction. In addition, Novoma has been able to reduce its returns rate thanks to more accurate order preparation and efficient returns management. Thanks to Shippingbo, the company has created a dedicated channel for rapid interaction with customer service to proactively manage returns, reintegrating or reshipping products as required.
Shippingbo x Novoma: towards sustainable growth
The internalization of logistics at Novoma has proved to be much more than an operational necessity, it has become a genuine market differentiation strategy. By taking complete control of its logistics operations, Novoma has not only improved the quality of its services, but also positioned logistics as a key lever for customer acquisition and retention.
This strategic shift has enabled Novoma to respond nimbly to market demands, while optimizing costs and improving the customer experience at every stage of the process. Thanks to a well-thought-out logistics approach and the help of advanced technological solutions such as those provided by Shippingbo, Novoma is well on the way to continuing to grow and prosper in the competitive world of e-commerce.
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