Overview

Founded in 2012 in Montreal’s hip Mile End neighbourhood, Frank And Oak’s goal was to design apparel that appealed to a new generation of creatives and entrepreneurs. Since then, they’ve expanded their presence to include 15 stores across Canada and a thriving e-commerce business, making them one of the country’s leading lifestyle brands and digital retailers.

Growing a better platform

With expansion comes opportunity, but also increased challenges. For Julia Rossi, Frank And Oak’s Operations Manager, there was a series of problems they were trying to solve by working with Amazon Business, which came down to a couple of main issues.

“We were unable to properly track and approve supply orders,” explained Rossi. “We also wanted a platform that offers   a wide range of supplies that our  stores could order from.”

Amazon Business pitches in 

They began with Account Authority, which helps businesses get better control and visibility of business accounts, and combined it with the efficiency of the Add Users solution for quickly and securely adding buyers. From there, they harnessed the actionable insights from Business Analytics together with the convenience and flexibility of the Business Prime membership.

At this point, Amazon Business helped by providing more specific, targeted support: the simplified, time-saving Business Lists, the invaluable Guided Buying, the workflow wonder that is Buying Policies/Approvals, not to mention Pay By Invoice, ProServe solutions, and more.  

“We noticed a wider selection of products to choose from, greater visibility on the frequency of products purchased, and increased visibility on the spend per store or department,” said Rossi. “We also gained the ability to approve orders effectively through Release Notes, to easily provide alternate solutions when orders are rejected, to manage budgets/orders through analytics and reporting tools with the ability to customize if needed, and to share shopping lists with stores that set standards for products purchased. In other words, this guided purchasing helps ensure the budget isn’t exceeded and that company standards are met.”

Quantifying the impact of these changes is clear, as Rossi reported that Frank And Oak saved almost $10,900 over the course of 10 months. The value that Amazon Business has brought to their organization is clear.

“Amazon Business enables us to effectively purchase products based on company standards—from setting controls as to the items each store can purchase and the convenience of fast shipping directly to these stores without any minimum purchase requirement, to having access to analytics to ensure all the purchasing is within store budgets.”