The solutions described in this case study were provided by Coyote Logistics prior to their acquisition by RXO, Inc., and the teams responsible for designing and executing them are now part of RXO.
About Bootstrap Farmer
Bootstrap Farmer started true to its DIY name, selling products off the back porch of Founder and CEO Brad Youst’s brother.
Today, they sell indoor and outdoor gardening equipment, greenhouse kits, and other related products from a Shopify-enabled ecommerce platform. They currently operate one facility out of northeast Texas, which handles all the shipping, logistics and warehousing for their business.
Services They Rely On:
Challenges and Results
Bootstrap Farmer’s Challenge:
Improving efficiency and reducing opportunities for human error in their growing business’s LTL shipping operations.
Results With Us:
Our knowledgeable LTL team and powerful API integration have helped Bootstrap Farmer streamline their shipping operations to one-click simplicity without sacrificing service.
“They’ve enabled us to automate our workflows, which helps increase our speed and accuracy of moving loads.
The support we receive from our account managers means we get quick and complete resolutions to any issue that may arise, from the pre-shipment stage to post-delivery.”
-Brad Youst, CEO and Founder, Bootstrap Farmer
Business Blossoms During the Pandemic
Even though they’ve been growing steadily since 2016, Bootstrap Farmer saw sales really take off after March 2020.
“Our business grew quite a lot in a year,” Youst notes. “Especially in the ‘small farm and people wanting to grow their own food’ area, the pandemic has created a lot more interest in us.”
But like many ecommerce businesses that boomed during the pandemic, Bootstrap Farmer has found it difficult to keep up with customer demand and maintain a smoothly functioning supply chain.
“We face more challenges now with logistics. There’s increased demand but less supply, and it’s harder to get that supply.”
-Brad Youst, CEO and Founder, Bootstrap Farmer
Throughout these volatile times, Bootstrap Farmer has focused on remaining as flexible and agile as possible. As Youst puts it, they’ve been “been trying to adapt and reduce our delays and tighten up our supply chain to be more adaptive.”
Bootstrap Farmer Brings Us Into the Picture
Bootstrap Farmer began working with us in 2020 as their shipping needs and their supply chain challenges were both rapidly on the rise.
The combination of a team with years of experience navigating a complicated freight market and powerful logistics technology make working with us a no-brainer.
How Our People Help Bootstrap Farmer
The Bootstrap team believe in letting people play to their strengths, both internally and externally
“We definitely try to leverage the people who are experts in areas we aren’t,” Youst says. “We aren’t shipping experts by any means, so we rely on our representatives.”
Bootstrap Farmer leans on our people — namely their dedicated rep Claire — to:
- Procure all their LTL capacity.
- Connect them to mobile warehousing flexible warehousing solutions during their seasonal crunches.
- Get on the phone and help them out whenever issues arise.
How Our Technology Helps Bootstrap Farmer
Logistics technology is at its best when it lets you minimize opportunities for human error and save your team from expending unnecessary time and resources.
For Bootstrap Farmer, our API integration does just that.
Bootstrap Farmer successfully integrate our API with:
- ShipStation ecommerce fulfillment platform
- Their built-in-house warehouse management system
- QuickBooks API
By doing this, they tap into our LTL network for shipping solutions that get each order to their customers’ front doors quickly and completely.
“This integration saves us from having to book shipments by hand also prevents any kind of errors,” Youst explains. “We try to leave our people’s time for things they’re good at doing and not repetitive tasks.”
Advice for Growing Shippers From Bootstrap Farmer
Youst stresses the importance of understanding the volatility in the supply chain and the wider world at any given moment and keeping lines of communication open.
Bootstrap Farmer Creative Director Nick Burton preaches proactivity when it comes to logistics technology.
“As your successful business scales up, if you don’t get your integrations set up now when it’s slow, by the time you really need them and you’re running all out it’s going to be too late.”
–Nick Burton, Creative Director, Bootstrap Farmer
And above all, especially in challenging times like these, Youst and Burton believe in staying flexible, believing you have to be able to adapt and find alternative means for doing what you need to do.
