Simple Recipe for Success

The combination of innovative products and EDI helps Mixed Emotions gain entry into 250+ retail doors

Two years ago, twenty-something Singer sisters, Emily, Stacy, Lesley and Jamie, teamed up with their parents to launch Mixed Emotions, a unique line of luxury bath and body products that celebrates the complexity of women's emotions. After a year of research and development, the Singers developed three staple bath and body product lines under the Mixed Emotions umbrella, which was a name trademarked years earlier by mom Carol Singer. Innovative products that are aptly named after a woman's moods and feelings -- Kiss Me, Bite Me, Celebrate Me, Mellow Me, etc. -- contain high-quality blends of natural extracts and fragrances and are specially formulated to work with female body chemistry and enhance women's emotions. "When four girls grow up in the same house, there are bound to be a whirlwind of emotions," says Emily Singer, president of Mixed Emotions. "My three sisters, parents and I have developed a unique line of bath and body products that celebrate the complexity of being a woman."

A Whirlwind Success

The company's creative mix and match approach to bath and body products took off faster than the Singer family expected, and within a year, the young company was being courted by mid- to high-end retailers such as Sephora, Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor. Suddenly, Mixed Emotions' paper-based purchase order system was limiting business growth, not too mention increasing the likelihood of errors and data inaccuracies as well as limiting visibility into the transaction cycle.

As a small, family-run company, the six Singer family members have to learn and run all aspects of the business. "To be honest I didn't even know how to properly take an order when we first started," says Singer. "We were taking orders via phone, e-mail and fax," an outdated system that inhibited Mixed Emotion's rapid growth.

An Intro to EDI

A few months into operations, Mixed Emotions landed the business of Sephora, a unique, open-sell environment featuring over 250 classic and emerging brands across a broad range of product categories, including skincare, color, fragrance, makeup, bath & body, and haircare. "Because Sephora wanted Mixed Emotions products right away, its first order was faxed, but by the time it wanted the second order, Sephora expected us to be EDI (electronic data interchange)-enabled," says Singer. "In order to accommodate growth and play with the 'big boys' like Sephora and Lord & Taylor, implementing and effective, cost-efficient EDI solution was necessary."

Realizing that traditional EDI infrastructure investments can be costly and too complicated for small businesses, it was Sephora that, in fact, turned Mixed Emotions attention toward QRS Web Forms -- now Inovis Web Forms -- as an EDI provider. Inovis Web Forms enables small to mid-sized suppliers leverage the Internet to receive and send EDI or e-commerce documents without re-keying information. Web Forms also handles all data translation to ensure that documents comply with trading partners' EDI, e-commerce specifications.

After a due diligence process conducted by sister Stacy Singer, Mixed Emotions decided Inovis Web Forms was the perfect solution to help satisfy its customers EDI needs. "We chose Inovis Web Forms based on the company's retail expertise and outstanding customer service."

Instant Payback

Inovis Web Forms was up and running within days and Mixed Emotions began realizing the business benefits of increased data accuracy and visibility into the transaction process immediately. The company is now able to handle electronic collaboration with approximately 250 retail doors across the United States, with the assurance of 100 percent compliance with each and every retailer's specifications.

Using Web Forms, Emily Singer simply selects the retailers with which Mixed Emotions does business, and the solution automatically converts the product information to meet each retailer's particular requirements. In fact, Singer estimates that just under half of its business is now conducted through Inovis Web Forms, minus the small boutique retailers.

In addition, Web Forms features a 90-day view of activity with each retailer, so the Singers can instantly see which quantities of each product are being ordered by which stores at any given time -- a task that would have previously required a time-consuming paper-chase. "I am not a technical computer person, but I am able to work with this with ease," admits Singer.

Becoming a Competitor

Essentially, Inovis helped to level the playing field for Mixed Emotions. With Inovis as a partner, Mixed Emotions gained the ability to do business with trading partners of all sizes and levels of technical sophistication. "Our customers are somewhat shocked when they hear we are EDI capable," says Singer. "Because people view us as much smaller than our larger competitors, they are very pleased to know that we are able to work with them on the level that they want. Over the past year, Inovis has proven itself invaluable partner."