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Aloha Beer achieves zero mis-shipments and increases brand awareness globally using ShipStation’s trusted platform. The shipping solution gives the award-winning brand the flexibility to grow the business and the ability to scale effortless from 100 to 15,000 monthly shipments with automated batch processing, address verification, carrier optimization, and seamless integrations.
Aloha Beer has a unique origin story that began in the 1990s when Steve Sombrero was completing his MBA. When his professor asked him to write a paper on what type of business would fill a gap in Hawaii’s market, he identified a critical need: visitors were ordering Budweiser and other domestic beers because there wasn’t a strong local craft beer brand in Hawaii.
Steve earned an A+ on the paper and trademarked the name “Aloha Beer,” but put the idea on hold while focusing on his commercial real estate business. In 2010, he finally brought the vision to life by founding Aloha Beer with the original goal of creating a beer brand that represented the entire state of Hawaii.
The brand’s growth trajectory changed dramatically in 2019 when entrepreneurs Yusuke and Candice Ishikawa stepped in to transform what began as an academic concept into an award-winning brewery and beer brand. Candice is Steve’s daughter, bringing the family vision full circle. Today, they continue building on that foundation, working to become the number one beer company and brand in Hawaii—an effort that’s already gaining national attention. Aloha Beer was recently recognized by VinePair as one of the top 20 breweries to watch in the U.S.
The couple brought proven ecommerce expertise from their previous venture, Skoshbox, a subscription box business for Japanese snacks and collectibles that they successfully scaled and exited in 2016. Their entrepreneurial foundation prepared them to take Aloha Beer from a passion project to a globally recognized Hawaiian brand, complete with collaborations with gaming giants like SEGA.
Yusuke, Head of Operations & Finance, has been instrumental in scaling both ventures’ shipping operations, leveraging his experience from Skoshbox’s growth to establish reliable fulfillment processes at Aloha Beer.
Today, Aloha Beer operates an award-winning taproom and beer garden that serves as a gathering place for locals and visitors, while their online merchandise reflects the brand’s energy and identity. Their long-term goal: establish Aloha Beer as the most recognized Hawaiian brand globally.
When scaling Skoshbox, the team needed a shipping solution that could handle thousands of curated subscription boxes each month without errors, delays, or customer frustration. As a small but fast-growing team, they required an interface that warehouse staff and customer service could quickly master, while maintaining the flexibility to scale logistics as the business expanded.
“We needed a way to batch, verify, and fulfill thousands of shipments in a single cycle,” Yusuke explained. “Without errors, delays, or customer frustration.”
The stakes were high: subscription customers expect reliability, and any shipping mishaps could damage customer relationships and hurt retention rates.
Even before launching Skoshbox, the team evaluated multiple platforms to ensure their logistics would be seamless.
Key decision factors:
“ShipStation stood out for its ease of use and robust feature set,” Yusuke recalled. “By the time we opened orders, we were confident in ShipStation’s ability to handle scale—and it delivered every step of the way.”
The Skoshbox onboarding was straightforward. The team connected their WooCommerce store, configured service mappings and automation rules, tested edge cases, and went live with minimal training requirements.
Later, when Skoshbox built a custom application, ShipStation’s API flexibility allowed them to maintain the same shipping backbone without disruption.
For Aloha Beer, the decision was immediate: stick with what worked at scale.
“Setup for Aloha Beer was essentially plug-and-play,” Yusuke explained. “Connected the store, configured automation rules, tested a few edge cases, and we were live.”
“We experienced zero mis-shipments tied to invalid addresses or mishandled orders at Aloha Beer, which spoke to the reliability of the platform,” Yusuke emphasized.
ShipStation’s automation streamlined address verification, batch order grouping, and label generation at scale, minimizing costs through strategic order grouping while maintaining customer service visibility.
The platform proved its capability during Skoshbox’s exponential growth.
“When Skoshbox was shipping over 15,000 boxes a month, fulfillment days could have been chaos—but ShipStation scaled with us effortlessly,” Yusuke noted.
The wide range of integrations allowed seamless transitions from WooCommerce to custom applications at Skoshbox, and clean Shopify integration for Aloha Beer.
Carrier suggestions and automation rules consistently identified more cost-efficient shipping methods, while uniform service obligations and island-friendly pricing made USPS the practical default for Hawaii-based shipments.
Built-in address verification and proactive error checking eliminated headaches from mis-shipments or invalid addresses, while proactive customer communication allowed the team to focus on brewing and brand building.
During Skoshbox’s most demanding fulfillment periods, the platform never faltered.
“It allowed us to batch and print thousands of labels at once, so the only bottleneck was how fast our printers could go,” Yusuke explained.
At Aloha Beer, the same reliability ensures that even during promotions, seasonal demand spikes, or high-profile collaborations, shipping never becomes a stress point.
“ShipStation enabled us to grow with confidence—giving us the freedom to focus on building memorable brands while knowing that shipping was taken care of.” -Yusuke Ishikawa, Aloha Beer
This confidence, built over years of reliable performance, has empowered the team to successfully launch and scale two distinct ventures, from Japanese snack subscriptions to Hawaiian craft beer, all powered by the same trusted shipping foundation.
As Aloha Beer continues its mission to become the most recognized Hawaiian brand globally, the Ishikawas are confident their shipping operations can scale alongside their ambitious growth plans, just as they did with Skoshbox’s journey from 100 to 15,000 monthly shipments.
For other growing businesses considering their shipping strategy, Yusuke offered this advice: “Don’t just evaluate ShipStation at the management level—involve your warehouse staff, customer service team, and anyone else who will touch the platform.”
Ready to scale your shipping operations with confidence? Discover how ShipStation can power your business growth, from startup to enterprise scale.
Aloha Beer needed reliable shipping operations that could scale without errors, delays, or customer frustration—requiring an intuitive platform that staff could quickly master while maintaining flexibility to grow with the business.