Kolkata Chai Co. Achieves 10% Reduction in Shipping Costs Partnering with Operating Crew
How we helped KCC save on shipping with our unique access to exclusive enterprise-level shipping rates
Company Overview
Kolkata Chai Co is a food & beverage company reclaiming the narrative around masala chai. They opened America’s first authentic chai cafe in New York City in 2019 and have served millions through their cafes and packaged chai blends since. Inspired by their summers spent in India, founders Ayan and Ani Sanyal are on a mission to make authentic, healthy chai accessible for everyone.
“Kolkata Chai started with a simple idea: How do we extend the authenticity, respect and tradition behind a cup of masala chai to the Western world?”
"In this environment of rising costs, any and every margin improvement is incredibly valuable. Working with Yan and the Operating Crew team was the best decision we've made - they are patient, knowledgeable and bring a founder-first POV to everything they do. Couldn't recommend more.”
- Ani Sanyal, Founder of Kolkata Chai Company
Challenges Faced
KCC’s customers can order high-quality chai from their website to be delivered directly to their doors. However, like many other businesses, KCC was dealing with rising shipping costs, impacting both profitability and shipping efficiency. With a sharp growth in sales orders, solving these issues became a top priority for KCC.
How We Helped
With the myriad of choices between carriers and service level types, it can be challenging to figure out the best options across the shipping profile for your brand, and balance cost and delivery speed. It doesn’t have to be so! We worked with KCC to segment their shipments not only by size and weight, but also by transit time in order to determine the best carrier and services for each. Specifically, KCC wanted to upgrade shipping for customers that were further away to improve their experience. We leveraged our access to enterprise-level rates to reduce their shipping costs by almost 10%.
The Transition
A key focus throughout was ensuring a smooth transition to a new shipping carrier and ensuring that there was no impact to the customer experience with all orders.
With a highly structured approach and a detailed process timeline outlining each step, from account setup with the carrier to scheduling regular warehouse pickups, shipping rule implementation within the shipping software, label testing, and the actual switchover, we took the lead on the end-to-end implementation for KCC.
Additionally, we built a custom shipping dashboard for KCC so that daily orders and shipping transits could be tracked in real-time, giving them greater insights into costs and savings than ever before.
Since there was a need to revamp the shipping rules, we jumped at the opportunity to visit their New Jersey warehouse to get these changes done, meet the team, and ensure their first pick-up went smoothly.
Results Achieved
Kolkata Chai Co. achieved an almost 10% reduction in shipping costs by switching to one of the most cost-efficient carrier services in the market, translating into further significant annual savings. The transition to the new carrier was seamless, with zero downtime and no disruption in services.
