Casper Case Study: Going International
- Business: Revolutionary Mattresses
- Website: casper.com
- EasyPost APIs Used: Shipping API
The Background
In Casper's words, they got into the mattress and bedding business because: "better sleep makes for better living."
And they're right. It’s an established fact that restful sleep is one of the keystones to living a healthy life. Casper's proprietary two-layered mattress is the result of 100+ formulations of foam, 3,240 hours of testing, and 108 iterations. Their bottom memory foam layer provides support and relieves pressure, while their top latex foam layer allows air to flow through and prevents overheating. Casper also makes sheets, pillows, and dog mattresses with the same level of ingenuity and care.
The amazing thing is that Casper delivers their mattresses straight to your door. They also back up their mattresses with a 100-night guarantee, and handle the entire pick-up process of any mattress return. No need to rent a truck, call a friend, or even lift a finger to get a Casper to your door.
The Logistics
In all, it takes a well-oiled supply chain to provide the kind of customer care that Casper has built their brand on. Building logistics around mattresses is tough. Mattresses are big and heavy, which usually means heightened shipping costs with minimal room to find discounts. On top of that, Casper's direct-to-consumer business inhibits the ability to ship mattresses in batches, thus striking out bulk discounts on shipping.
Still, they've built an impressive supply chain that allows them to sell mattresses at below-market rates with free shipping. Most brands are still spending big chunks of their revenue on fulfillment, so it's impressive to see Casper grow profits with a lower price point and without passing shipping costs to the customer.
The Problem
Casper originally built their carrier integrations through mostly open-source software and resources. At face value, it seemed like a good move. The developers get a chance to expose themselves to different technology, and their integrations would improve the quality of open source code.
Still, it takes the average brand three months to fully integrate with a carrier. Casper's core competency is not building shipping integrations, it's selling a better mattress. To divert valuable resources to build out an in-house integration is a great example of bootstrapping, but three months is a long time to devote precious developer resources towards.
On top of that, integrations with carriers lack flexibility, which inhibits the integration's ability to scale with the business. For instance, their integration lacked the ability to print shipping labels at the point of shipment. Labels would have to be bought and printed at the point of sale, which would require new labels to be printed whenever an order would change. It's a small problem for small brands, but a huge source of inefficiency for a brand of Casper's size.
So when it came time for Casper to choose a European carrier, it became a decision of investment. Would it be worth it to wait three months before they could start shipping with the partner? If they didn't work out, could they spare another three months to integrate with a different partner? If the integration wasn’t built correctly, how long would it take to fix it
The Solution
With the operational and technical challenges of their current shipping processes, Casper decided to try EasyPost. EasyPost has out-of-the-box integrations with 100+ carriers. We're one of the only APIs to have a truly international reach, allowing brands to tap into emerging markets without being bogged down by complex integrations with international carriers.
When Casper wanted to expand to Europe, they were able to leverage the speed of integration and shipping expertise that EasyPost provided. For instance, instead of committing to a single carrier, they could use carrier on a trial basis, allowing them to vet carriers until they found the right partner. With EasyPost, brands can get set up with a carrier within a day and enjoy the benefits of EasyPost’s pre-existing relationships with every supported carrier.
More importantly, EasyPost's flexibility allowed Casper to plug the inefficiencies of their old in-house integration. Our Tracking API webhooks eliminated the need to proactively call the carrier for shipment updates. Our Shipping API made it easy to print labels at point of shipment, not point of sale. And as Casper continues to grow, they have the ability to tweak the integration to account for new requirements.
EasyPost was a vital tool for Casper that allowed us to launch in 4 different countries over the course of one summer without having to waste any time integrating with various carrier API's Eli Bosworth Director of Operations Technology, Casper
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