Beyond saving us a ton of time, Airhouse has unexpectedly cut down on our costs, too. Now all I do is check the Airhouse app every once in a while. For our first product release, fulfillment alone ate up over half of my week. Once we signed with Airhouse, fulfillment instantly became a lot easier.

At the end of the day, we needed a partner who could accommodate our packaging, had competitive rates for storage and shipping, and could deliver orders with speed. The branded experience we deliver to our customers is crucial for us, and only one other warehouse besides Airhouse was willing to do it all. Some would let us use our custom boxes, but not crinkle paper, or wouldn’t accommodate as much kitting as we needed. We eliminated options that had smaller operations because we needed a 3PL who could keep up as we scale.Īs we continued our search, we were met with lots of rejection because most warehouses wouldn’t let us use all of our custom packaging. This narrowed our search to California-based warehouses. When we were looking for 3PLs we learned that selecting a warehouse location far from our manufacturer would result in very expensive freight fees. With our elaborate unboxing experience, it eventually became too much to handle this on our own.

I would spend at least 20 hours each week assembling orders, and we had to eventually hire someone part-time to help out with fulfillment. The process was taxing and took a lot of time.īecause candles are fragile to ship, everything had to be carefully bubble wrapped, and we have lots of custom packaging from the box and candle container to crinkle paper and stickers. We ordered all of the packaging and stored the product in my home, and very quickly the limitations of DIY fulfillment became clear. When we first started AÏYA we had an ambitious launch date and couldn’t find a 3PL in time, so I started shipping orders on my own.

Aiya candle