How Commitment to Quality Fulfillment Contributes to High-Value Customer Satisfaction

Shaper Tools – well known for its handheld CNC router, Origin – focuses on developing products which make precision cutting easy and accessible to craftspeople everywhere. Following the launch of Shaper Origin in 2017, the team has expanded its offerings year after year, to now include dozens of new accessories and tools for craftspeople.

During this period of expansion, while more products were being added to each customer order, packaging decisions were being made that did not match their customer’s expectations.  

Co-CEO and Chief Product Officer at Shaper Tools, Joe Hebenstreit put his trust in the DCL team to come up with a better solution. He challenged the DCL team and was met with a fulfillment partner willing to get the job done right, exactly as Shaper Tools needed to.  

Joe says, “I feel like DCL is a partner, in good times and bad times. And when we’ve had to roll up our sleeves and get to work, I appreciate DCL’s supportiveness to do the work with us. DCL is a 3PL that works just as hard as we do to meet our customer’s expectations.”  

Ecommerce Study: Shaper Tools

• Problem: Shaper Tools was focused on growing their company and adding accessory products and didn’t realize that single-use plastic air pillows were being used to pack orders, which didn’t align with their brand values and customer expectations. 

• Solution: They challenged DCL’s default packaging decision. After much deliberation between paper dunnage and plastic air pillows, and which of the two were more environmentally friendly, they decided that paper packing was a better match with their brand values. DCL’s flexibility and willingness to understand Shaper’s needs brought them to an alternative packing material that matched Shaper’s expectations of care and craft.  

• Result: The Shaper team now has more trust in DCL’s ability to help their team make the best decisions for their brand, to scale and keep their customers satisfied. 

DCL has always been a good partner to us. They are always responsive in exactly the ways you expect a vendor to be, but more than that DCL’s flexibility enables Shaper Tools to make choices that meet the needs of our customers. One of the biggest things I value about our partnership is the flexibility that DCL has and the growth it has enabled for our company.

High Quality Products Deserve Premium Packaging  

For many brands, especially those with high-value products, the unboxing experience is extremely important. But it can’t be a one-size-fits-all solution, it must be tailored to meet the needs and expectations of customers.  

“We care a lot about our products, but particularly our entire product experience and our brand experience,” says Joe. “We put an unbelievable amount of time and effort into crafting our products. We want to build this awesome experience, and so we think a lot and care a lot about every interaction with the products including the packaging on our products.” 

The Shaper Tools product line serves thousands of craftspeople around the world, like woodworkers, carpenters and highly skilled artisans. Their dedication to their craft must be met in the presentation and care of the premium tools they buy from Shaper. 

Joe recalls the early days of Shaper, even then the team had hard conversations with their manufacturers about packaging from day one. “Before we even shipped a product, even though we were small and needed to be scrappy and very careful with our budgeting, we couldn’t just send out our tools packed in Styrofoam. It was a bit contentious at times, it would be easier to just go with the default, the simplest option, the cheapest option, but the decision to push further comes from our internal core values: We care about this and we know our customers care deeply too.”

How SKU Proliferation Drove a Big Packaging Miscommunication  

In the beginning, DCL only shipped out a single flagship product for Shaper. The Shaper team had designed the packaging, specified the outer box and worked with suppliers on every detail.  

Joe says, “We’ve since developed more products, many smaller accessories, and we filled out the ecosystem. And then we offered bundles, and more incentives for buyers like free shipping for higher value orders. Along the way, as we’ve grown, we lost track of how our products appear coming out of DCL, and what our customers experience.” 

Joe was surprised one day to find that customers were receiving Shaper orders packed with polybag air pillows. For Shaper this was controversial. Joe explains, “For us, the dedication to environmental responsibility can be less direct in our day-to-day product development work. But avoiding single-use plastics is an easy one to address, that we feel also aligns both with our customer needs and company values. Ultimately, we want to match the craftsmanship and attention to quality that our customers have and expect.”  

This packaging issue was a shock and needed to be changed quickly. How did something like this happen?  

Joe says, “We have a vision in our mind of how customers are going to interact with our products. But once we added more SKUs and got invested in growing customer orders a lot of things started to get put together into a large box.”  

The polybag air pillows are the most common packaging on the market today—they are cost effective, secure, and very easy to store, fill and pack. While these single-use plastics are proven to be a burden on landfills, it’s not entirely clear that they are worse for the environment than paper. The source materials used to manufacture plastic air pillows and the fact that they potentially require less energy to manufacture, transport, and use, make them an equally sustainable option in many regards.  

DCL’s decision to use polybag air pillows was irrelevant because it wasn’t the right choice for the Shaper brand.  

A True Partnership and Dedication to Quality  

Joe needed to get some answers and resolve the issue quickly, so he reached out to DCL leadership to ensure no communication was lost in translation. 

“The fact that contact information was readily available about your leadership indicates that DCL is not just some big faceless, nameless corporation,” Joe says. “It was refreshing to connect with real people on this issue. Even though I challenged DCL, I wasn’t met with defensiveness, I was met with an engaged dialogue. I explained what we genuinely believe in, what we care about, our values and what version of sustainable products that we need. We were really looking for a partner that could help us meet that goal.” 

It was important for the Shaper team to get an unboxing experience that matched their customer expectations.  

Joe explains, “In talking with DCL leadership, we all admitted we’re not experts on the topic and that everyone is trying to figure the details of sustainability out as we go. But based on the research we’ve done, and bottom line for us, we believe that those types of single-use plastic bags aren’t practically recyclable in most municipalities, and therefore don’t match our company values.”  

DCL was quick and thorough in researching the best way to meet Shaper’s request.  

Joe says, “It felt like a true partnership should. DCL came back and said, ‘Of course we’ll switch over to the dunnage materials that fit your brand.’ DCL has always been a good partner to us. They are always responsive in exactly the ways you expect a vendor to be, but more than that DCL’s flexibility enables Shaper Tools to make choices that meet the needs of our customers. One of the biggest things I value about our partnership is the flexibility that DCL has and the growth it has enabled for our company.”