by Nick Pennington
Tell us a bit about the company; what’s the inspiration behind the name?
JustWears is a sustainable men’s underwear brand, which provides the most comfortable alternative to regular boxers and briefs. The brand was originally called JoeyWears, as the ergonomic design has a unique pouch feature, which provides much more comfort than traditional underwear. However, we like to say we’re ‘JustWears’, not ‘just underwear’, and so a few years ago we wanted to find a brand name that didn’t define us solely by this product feature. As a result, we asked our customers if they’d like to choose a new name for the brand, and that’s when JustWears was born.
Once you try on a pair of JustWears for the first time, you’ll realise that you’ve been wearing underwear incorrectly until now and that this is how you should be wearing underwear going forward. It’s a pretty amazing design, with no riding up or chaffing and many of our customers say it has made them throw away their existing underwear to replace them all with JustWears!
Had you ever heard of Huboo before joining?
We hadn’t heard of Huboo before joining. Around 12-18 months ago, we’d outgrown our previous fulfilment centre as they were unable to keep up with the level of customer demand we had for our products. We were looking for a new provider in the market that was able to take on a much broader range of stock and products. Then we came across Huboo…
What we really liked when we met with Huboo for the first time was that its Hub set-up really did feel like an extension of the JustWears team, and the JustWears brand. It’s not that JustWears are simply passing on our orders to Huboo, we’re all one team working together.
We have our own Hub Manager that we speak to multiple times a day via Slack and they know us – and the JustWears brand – inside out. Our Hub Manager knows how we like to deliver orders to customers, and they can also quickly identify any issues with orders before they are dispatched, and then resolve these without the customer ever realising.
We want to deliver exceptional service to our customers throughout their entire interaction with JustWears, not just when they go onto our website or when they are wearing our products. This is something that’s really important to us and Huboo does a great job of ensuring that the product arrives on time and in a perfect condition and that the unboxing experience is second-to-none.
What was your onboarding experience like, is the dashboard easy-to-use?
We found the on-boarding experience and the dashboard itself excellent. Compared to some providers in the market that we had looked at, it was certainly one of the best. It’s very intuitive, easy-to-use and the integration is very simple.
The way that it links to Shopify, and how it runs our inventory management, is all very effective. The fact that the Huboo dashboard also links to other platforms so seamlessly is impressive, and it allows us to scale the system with ease. This is one of the key reasons why we joined Huboo.
How has Huboo benefited you and your business?
We have definitely found that we have more time now that we can hand over the reins to Huboo to look after our fulfilment process. In the past, fulfilment took up a significant amount of internal resource to troubleshoot and get right. Now we can pass the baton over to Huboo, knowing that they are able to look after the process for us.
One clear demonstration of our trust in Huboo is that we’re now expanding into Europe and distributing directly from Huboo’s newest facility in The Netherlands. Dispatching from this location means that our customers who are based in Europe can avoid being charged customs fees on goods sent to them which, post Brexit, would’ve been the case if they were sent from the UK. This means that we can ensure that our European customers also have an excellent experience when receiving their JustWears.
What are the things you’ve benefited from since joining Huboo?
The Huboo Key Account Manager team is a great benefit. Our account manager knows our products and the business really well, and is readily available to chat whenever we need. It means that it’s not just our Hub Manager who is managing our entire order flow, but there’s a more strategic overlay, and a higher level of strategic insight too.
This is especially important during Q4, where we had hundreds of thousands of pairs of pants being delivered to Huboo’s warehouses to meet customer demand during peak events like Black Friday and Christmas.
Another benefit is that every day – without fail – our customers know that their order is going to be dispatched on the same day, so long as the order is placed before 2pm. We also know that this happens 7 days a week, for almost 365 days a year. Our customers find this very impressive, especially during peak seasons, where we have a huge volume of orders every day.
Also, when you go to the warehouse, and see how the Huboo team interacts, you can tell it’s a nice place to work and has a great culture. People enjoy working for Huboo, and that’s the kind of company we want to work with too.
What does the future hold for JustWears?
Our goal is always focused on creating the most comfortable essential wear. Over the next year or two we’ll be launching new products and looking to enter new markets as well. Hopefully Huboo will be just that step ahead of us, so we can continue this excellent partnership. We’re also hiring more people to the JustWears team and scaling fairly impressively, so keep your eyes peeled!
