Mike Wang, chief executive officer and founder of Innocent Armor, and Dwayne Shakespeare, director of e-commerce and parcel with Jillamy Inc., explain why Innocent Armor turned to Jillamy for a fulfillment center that could scale in line with the client’s projected growth. 

Innocent Armor sells a premium line of bulletproof “lifestyle clothing” — apparel with the same level of protection available to law enforcement. As a small startup, Innocent needed a fulfillment center that could grow with its needs, Wang says. Jillamy, he adds, had the necessary resources, but as a family-owned company was also able to apply the personal touch to its dealings with the customer. “We don’t feel like we’re lost in a big corporation,” Wang says. “Their people have been very friendly and responsive — they’re great to work with.”

Shakespeare says the engagement kicked off with a discovery call in which Innocent laid out its need for current space, scalability and accompanying technology. “One of the things we brought to the table was our ability to have experts in every area of transportation, supply chain, warehousing, e-commerce and technology,” he says. 

Innocent had been relying on another fulfillment center provider that wasn’t meeting its needs. The switchover went smoothly, Wang says, thanks in large part to the expertise of Jillamy’s staff. One individual in particular, a FedEx veteran, offered ideas that ended up lowering Innocent’s shipping costs by 30% to 40%. 

Shakespeare says Jillamy took care to interview multiple people in Innocent’s organization, “to make sure we were getting all the touchpoints correctly, and capturing everyone’s needs.”

As for Innocent today, “our orders are going out much faster, with better response times,” Wang says, adding that the company expects to take advantage of even greater economies of scale through Jillamy as it grows.