About YURICA®
YURICA® is a parenting brand based in Singapore; its innovative product Yaytray® is the world’s first all-on-one kids tray. With the mission of helping to make parenting a much more joyful experience, YURICA has created a series of quality products to ease the pain points often associated with feeding and caring for children, so that parents can all focus on the things which genuinely matter.
Parenting is one of life’s most challenging journeys. As parents themselves, the YURICA team invariably goes through all the ups and downs of this roller-coaster ride of experiences and emotions. They empathize with the parents who seem to struggle with the same parenting journey. So they are determined to help. To give their customers complete peace of mind, YURICA only provides eco-friendly, non-toxic, BPA-free, phthalate-free, and heavy-metal free products. Besides Yaytray, YURICA also provides anti-bacterial ceramic scissors, lunchbox carrier boxes, baby wipes, etc.
Key Metrics:
- Fulfillment costs reduced by 30%
- Average shipping time 20% faster
- 2 NextSmartShip fulfillment centers used
The No.2 Most Popular Crowdfunding Campaign on Kickstarter Singapore
As a father of a 3-year-old, Jeremy Yew, the founder of YURICA, is fully aware of how exhausting parenting can be, such as spending 15 minutes in actually eating and 1 hour to clean up the mess. He found that the critical fact that made the happy mealtime a considerable challenge is that ordinary bowls are easy to knock over, split foods, and toppling bowls make a mess. And if the family is eating outside, the parent has to pack up all the used bowls and utensils. He decided to develop an all-in-one tray that allows for clean, fuss-free eating and packs up to go in a matter of seconds.
The bulb lit up, and the Yaytray was born.
Jeremy and his team launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for this brilliant idea. The campaign was 49.54% funded in just over 4 hours and soon became the #2 most popular on Kickstarter Singapore.
The Manufacturer in China
Consumer’s enthusiasm and the vast market potential motivated the YURICA team to keep working hard on the products. As the 25,000 Singapore dollar campaign was fully funded after one week, the next question before the YURICA team is: How to put the idea into reality. Since China is the world’s factory, it’s logical to look for the manufacturer there. Thanks to the developed manufacturing industry and the world’s biggest sourcing platform, Alibaba, China, gathered many manufacturers. Their mature technology and optimized production process make producing high-quality products very affordable, leaving more significant profit margins for eCommerce business owners.
That’s why Jeremy and his team decided to pack their bags and head China. After visiting the manufacturer’s factory in Shenzhen, they were impressed with the effort and dedication and relieved to see that their products are in good hands.
At last, after weeks of going backs and forth, the final version of Yaytray was ready to be delivered.
The New eCommerce Business
Simultaneously, when the Kickstarter campaign went smoothly, YURICA was developing into a mature business. By gathering backers feedback and promoting the campaign, YURICA got an excellent brand exposure and a considerable number of early customers with brand loyalty. Establishing an eCommerce website is a natural progression.
The official website https://yurica.co/ brought Jeremy and his team a lot of pre-orders and a taste of running a successful business. But challenges always go hand in hand with development.
The Order Fulfillment with Difficulties
When you were dealing with hundreds of backers, it was easy to spend a few days rolling up your sleeves and putting together all the various components that go into the packaging. But when it became a growing business, everything is much complicated.
The primary market of Yaytray is in Singapore, and they want to expand their business to the USA. Both shipping destinations are quite far away from the Chinese manufacturer. And to delight the buyers and create a good brand image, Jeremy decided to provide free shipping for all the orders above 40 Singapore dollars and make the shipping time as short as possible, which is quite a promise for an international eCommerce brand. Since the manufacturer is in China, it’s only logical to fulfill orders there. But they soon found it difficult to find an efficient and reliable company. The rates were too expensive, and the delivery lead-time was too long.
The Problem Solver
“We are very pleased with the service of NextSmartShip as the team members we are working with are friendly, helpful, and always willing to go the extra mile. It is always a pleasure working with the team from NextSmartShip, especially with our account manager Rebecka. We would highly recommend NextSmartShip to anyone who is looking for a reliable logistics partner based in China.”
Jeremy Yew
By doing researches online, Jeremy found NextSmartShip.
The fulfillment adviser provided the fulfillment solution based on their needs.
Fulfillment center: China and USA
China has lower labor costs and other expenses, and NextSmartShip also provides 90 days of free warehousing in China fulfillment center, so keeping most of the inventory in China is very cost-effective. But since the holiday season is coming, using a USA-based fulfillment center is necessary if Jeremy wants their products to be delivered 10 days.
Shipping methods
NextSmartShip provides multiple shipping methods for each shipping destination, so Jeremy can choose and combine them according to the fast-changing situation in peak seasons. The flexible shipping methods make it possible for YURICA to provide a clear shipping policy, and they are providing 3-4 days shipping!
Thanks to the tailor-made solution. The YURICA team can offer more services and options to their customers by shipping orders to more countries, having faster delivery lead-times, and offering more cost savings to their customers through reduced shipping rates. For the business, they were also able to exercise more flexibility in inventory management and business planning by allocating their inventory to other warehouses outside of China (e.g., USA). This helps them enter new markets more efficiently by fulfilling orders in different locations outside of China.
What’s Next
Besides YURICA, Jeremy is also running other parenting-related brands such as Luumyn. By expanding product categories and markets, Jeremy is going step by step towards the goal, providing a better life for his wife and child and improving the parenting experiences for global customers. With a fulfillment partner like NextSmartShip, Jeremy can expand his business as much as he wants and still get centralized inventory management and streamlined order fulfillment experience.
