With a total commitment to tailored service, Warehow has quickly become a trusted logistics partner for UK businesses big and small
Just three years since its inception, Warehow has become one of the UK’s most versatile providers of flexible marketplace fulfillment services. Originally founded as part of the We Are Pentagon Group, the company is now a reliable partner to some of the fashion industry’s biggest name brands, as Chief Executive Officer, Pete Harris, begins: “Warehow is a UK-based business, focused on helping businesses store and ship their products. Our focus is on delivering goods directly to customers or small business clients. We specialize in handling orders from online marketplaces and stores, such as eBay, Shopify, John Lewis, and Next. Primarily, but not exclusively, the company focuses on servicing the ever-growing fashion and small home sectors, although, in reality we are increasingly becoming sector agnostic.
“Incorporated in late 2021, Warehow was initially incubated in the We Are Pentagon Group. The team behind Warehow started providing dropshipping services for Sports Direct as part of a wider marketplace e-commerce solution in 2018. Since then, our leadership team has scaled and exited successful businesses within e-commerce logistics.
“In 2020, Arcadia Group approached our previous company to manage their marketplace business. This new opportunity required us to pivot our existing model in order to provide fulfillment services. This was one of our strongest strategic moves, and even when Arcadia went into administration, we had other clients already wanting our fulfillment services. Being aware of the potential in this space, we decided in late 2021 to spin out fulfillment as a separate entity, and that’s when Warehow was founded.”
With a service offering that goes above and beyond, Warehow has built strong bonds with its client base. “We pride ourselves on being client centric. We like to think of ourselves as big enough to scale, but small enough to care. Although our services may sound pretty standard, with stock intake, storage, pick pack and dispatch services, we’re proud that for a relatively young business we’re already successfully working with major industry players such as ASOS, Next, Very, and John Lewis. We also work with the emerging market heavyweights of Shopify, Shein, and TikTok, as well as the established and more traditional marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay.
“We think it’s important that all our clients have access to trained colleagues to talk to, and not just automated email responses. Whilst for some clients a well-executed and straightforward service solution is all they need, for others their product and brand require a little more. We offer a range of services, from pre-dispatch garment steaming to bespoke wrapping and even folding garments in a specified way. Within reason, if a client needs a service, we’ll do our best to provide it, including returns management and screening,” Pete details.
Staying a step ahead
As one of the UK’s fastest growing e-commerce fulfillment companies, Warehow is known for its flexible, service-led approach. Pete discusses how he and the business stay one step ahead: “For larger businesses, who may already have a successful in-house logistics solution or even another 3PL, Warehow can offer quick and capital-light access to the increasingly important Marketplace sector.
“Many of these businesses are highly successful but have legacy IT systems which make integrating numerous new channels potentially slow and costly. Equally challenging and costly can be the need to adapt existing D2C pick and pack operations to meet the nuanced requirements of numerous marketplace channels. When you add into the equation that marketplace sales volumes are notoriously hard to forecast accurately, and that any initial foray into marketplace selling by larger businesses and brands is often started as an extended trial, Warehow’s capital-light and quick to launch offering is an attractive and low risk proposition.
“Sometimes bigger businesses also view marketplaces as a quick fix for clearance and excess inventory. This activity has less impact on their branded dot-com site,
frees up warehouse space, drives cash, and, importantly, ensures their main brand website taxonomy isn’t diluted by out-of-season clearance. A great example of this is the work we manage for River Island on eBay and Secret Sales.
“For smaller and growing businesses our comprehensive integrations, various pricing models with a very transparent fee structure and post-sale payment plans, and B2B capabilities provide the ideal way to scale. Warehow also offers flexible courier options via our parcel aggregator, Parcel Hub. For many clients, having a choice between Yodel, Evri, Royal Mail and DPD is important, as it allows them to choose the right service for their brand. Many of our clients use more than one courier, dependent on basket value and merchandise type.
“In summary, it just makes sense for businesses to let Warehow look after logistics while they focus fully on their core product and sales. These attributes have enabled us to work successfully with well-known companies such as Haier, Hoover, Puma, and River Island, but also exciting companies at earlier stages of growth such as Nudea, Collab footwear, and Funky Home.”
It’s clear that the Warehow story has only just begun. With exciting new investments and even further expansion on the horizon, Pete looks forward to the future: “2024 has been a very successful year for us. The company has completed our series A funding round, led by the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II, through its appointed fund manager Mercia Ventures. We’ve had support on this from our existing investor MENA Moonshots, which has enabled us to invest in both our team and infrastructure.
“With the support and guidance of our newly appointed Chair, John Hughes, we’re looking forward to 2025. We already have some great new clients waiting to come on board, and we’re confident that our dedicated and professional team will provide an efficient and effective level of service that keeps our clients very happy and enables their businesses to flourish.
“Looking further into the future, we believe the growth potential in the UK is massive. In our chosen sector, we don’t see the demand waning for many years to come, if ever. Although we’re very much focusing on the UK for now, we’re always keeping a keen eye on opportunities to expand, so possibly Europe could be on the five-year horizon,” he concludes.