Spikeball
SUMMARY
Born of a trip to Toys R Us back in 1989, Spikeball has become a favorite pasttime of many athletes (and non-athletes!) around the nation. Learn how the provider of the unique gear for the sport uses ShipStation to ship out their goods.
WHERE THEY SELL
Spikeball.com
Can you give us a rundown of how the game came into being?
Friends of mine bought the game at Toys R Us in 1989. I was 14 at the time. We played on and off for 20+ years and every time we played strangers would walk up and ask about it. Realizing there was a market for the game, we decided to try and bring it back to life. Knowing absolutely nothing about Branding, Product Development, Shipping, E-commerce, etc we acquired the rights and relaunched it about 5 years ago.
What’s been the biggest challenge in-essentially-creating your own sport?
Getting the word out. We have avoided big, expensive advertising campaigns. We’ve kept our focus on the players, and not so much on the product. Grassroots and community building have been the two strongest vehicles for us. Early on, I sent a personal email to every customer asking how they heard about us. That helped tremendously and gave us the insight to start partnering with the Ultimate Frisbee community, Summer camps, and faith-based youth groups.
How has ShipStation helped you with your business?
It’s been pretty incredible. Before ShipStation , I was logging into the USPS site every night and printing tons of labels. It was incredibly time-consuming and inefficient. ShipStation has given us a level of efficiency that I never thought possible. Our volume is growing like crazy and ShipStation is keeping up without missing a beat.
What’s your favorite ShipStation feature?
Hands down, our favorite ShipStation feature is automation. Automation has saved us hundreds of hours per month. In the past, when processing retail customer orders, we had to manually enter in their 3rd party shipping account info. This was a total pain. Now, with ShipStation, we have the ability to create an automation for each one of our retail customers that auto-magically applies the account information as soon as the order is loaded into the system.
ShipStation has given us a level of efficiency that I never thought possible.
"With ShipStation, I’m able to create 500 labels in less than a few minutes and get beauty in the hands of women who are battling cancer so much quicker. It allows me to put so much more time into the things that are really valuable to the Stay Beautiful Foundation and helps us grow and scale."
"ShipStation integrates seamlessly into all new and emerging marketplaces. It allows us to focus less on shipping, and more on generating revenue for our clients."
"ShipStation and UPS allows us to scale and fulfill with the same quality as billion-dollar companies."
"ShipStation has one simple dashboard with all of our shipping needs. We can compare rates across different carriers, understand delivery time frames, and quote customers expedited shipping."
"I appreciate how intuitive and practical ShipStation's features are when processing delivery labels. It's really fast and efficient!"
"I’ve learned so much with ShipStation, it is seriously amazing. I tell everybody about how it will change your business and how efficiently you can run everything."