Suitor - Operations Dashboard & Fulfilment System
Suitor came to us with a unique, high‑volume rental workflow and no off‑the‑shelf platform that fit the job. Operations were running on spreadsheets—painful to scale, time‑heavy, and too rigid for the day‑to‑day of dispatch, returns, and replacements.
Ecommerce rental custom software management
We designed and built a custom operations dashboard that centralises orders across regions, automates the boring bits (labels, tracking, fees, comms), and gives their team a live view of what’s moving where.
- Operations Dashboard
- Fulfilment System
- Website Development
- Custom Integrations
- Hosting & Support
- Website Maintenance & Scale
Honestly could not speak higher of Alex and his team at Shtudio. We have been working with them for 3 years, building a very complex and custom operational system for our rental business. The complexity of the project could not be understated but Alex and his team have always been able to engineer, develop and implement a solution that works in an incredibly fast, cost-effective and professional manner. We have also built numerous custom features for our website with speedy delivery and a very high quality of work I don’t often leave reviews but I truly cannot recommend Alex and Shtudio, high enough!
- Fragmented workflow: WooCommerce orders, manual label creation, spreadsheets, different carriers in AU/NZ (and later UK).
- Time pressure: Labels, pickups and tracking needed to just work—fast—without tab‑hopping or rekeying.
- Rental‑specific logic: Event dates, replacements, late returns, returns routing, and different SLAs per region.
- Data quality: Address validation and order hygiene (e.g. different order status behaviours across markets).
- Scalability: Handle growth, new sites, and new carriers/3PLs without re‑platforming.
A custom web application (PHP backend on VPS) that plugs into Suitor’s WooCommerce stack and orchestrates fulfilment across carriers, sites, and regions. Orders flow into a single dashboard where staff batch, print, dispatch, and track—with exceptions clearly flagged. The system is modular, so adding a region or carrier is a config+API job, not a rebuild.
Core capabilities
- Auto‑carrier selection per region with clear rules and overrides.
- One‑click label generation & re‑print with carrier‑level offset controls.
- Daily Processing workflow: Automated Labels → Daily Processing → In Transit → Delivered → Returns → Archive.
- Replacements (R‑flag) with priority and automated comms.
- Late‑fee automation based on real tracking events.
- Customer self‑service (Manage My Order): sizing confirmations and updates.
- Returns portal improvements with stable tracking.
- Ops controls: batching, allocation to team members, and status change actions.
Turning spreadsheets into software
Integrations & Stack:
Commerce & Core
- WordPress/WooCommerce (multi‑site: AU, NZ; UK module)
- Custom PHP service on VPS, MySQL
- macOS print agent (CUPS) for instant label printing
Carriers & Logistics
- Australia Post: eParcel (Express, Parcel Post), Returns (PR), label offsets, pickup bookings
- StarTrack: Premium & Courier (On Demand)
- DHL: International + NZ routing, replacements default
- NZ Post: international/NZ routing (no ‘state’ concept handling), return label behaviours
- DPD (UK outbound and returns): pickup‑shop barcodes + live event tracking
- ACS (UK 3PL): orders + SKUs mapping (in progress)
Comms & Data
- BurstSMS (AU/NZ/UK) for operational messaging
- Transactional email templates (with iOS mail client testing)
- Google Maps API for address validation (visual signals in UI)
- Security: Sucuri WAF & incident response on web properties
Ongoing Management
We continue to maintain and extend the system: new carriers, SKU clean‑up for UK/ACS, additional metrics, RFID pilots, and more UX in “Manage My Order”. We ship improvements continuously and keep comms tight (Telegram + regular video catch‑ups).
Results we’ve achieved so far
From spreadsheets to scale
Staff now process, pick, print and track inside one tool, across AU/NZ and UK.
Speed & accuracy
Label creation, replacements, and returns are near‑instant with fewer errors.
Smarter routing
Auto‑carrier rules protect SLAs while keeping costs predictable.
Happy ops team
Clear statuses (“Daily Processing”, “In Transit”, “Returns”) and clean reprint/void paths.
Revenue tailwinds
Alongside the ops build, SEO and digital campaigns lifted inbound traffic materially in the first four months.
Government grant – granted
We also helped the client secure an Australian government grant that partially funded the build.
Snapshot Timeline
2023 — Early dashboard build; AusPost, StarTrack; address checks; returns portal; security hardening.
May 2024 — Major dashboard upgrade live; NZ site hooked in; late‑fees & tracking stabilisation.
Aug 2024 — Auto‑carrier rules for NZ; Sydney courier boundary logic; delivered/returns page clean‑ups.
Nov 2024 — Email template fixes (iOS client), SKU planning for UK/ACS.
Apr–Jun 2025 — Express label offset controls; UK module; DPD returns tracking; ACS API design.
2026→ — Development of a custom warehouse inventory system to improve control, reduce reliance on third party 3PL providers, and lower long term operating costs.
Address hygiene across AU/NZ
New Zealand doesn’t use ‘states’. We added address validation logic using Google Maps and UI cues (green/valid, red/invalid, blue/manual) and adjusted forms and batch tools accordingly.
Auto‑carrier logic
Rules per market (e.g. NZ: <5 business days → DHL; ≥5 → AusPost International). Sydney postcodes outside StarTrack Courier’s range fall back to Express Post. Replacement orders in NZ default to DHL. All configurable.
Label generation & printing
Labels are created via carrier APIs and cached. We added per‑carrier offset controls, explained the “first‑print cache” behaviour, and delivered a macOS print agent so labels stream straight to QL‑class printers with no browser guesswork. Reprints and voids are handled cleanly.
Different order status semantics per site
AU and NZ fire different WooCommerce events (Processing vs Completed). We built alternate triggers and a manual import tool so nothing falls through.
Late‑fee automation
Late fees kick in on specific tracking milestones, per region and carrier, with opt‑outs for edge cases while we stabilised NZ/international tracking.
Returns
Returns portal stabilised (tracking numbers persist), barcodes validated, and UK returns wired to DPD Pickup Shop events so we know the moment a parcel is lodged.
Security & reliability
Clean‑up and hardening on the NZ site (malware incident), plus Sucuri WAF on both sites.
UK expansion & 3PL
UK added as a dashboard module (initially fulfilled from AU via DHL), then integrated with ACS (3PL). Work includes SKU strategy for multi‑item suit packages and posting orders to ACS once sizing is confirmed. Returns portal stabilised (tracking numbers persist), barcodes validated, and UK returns wired to DPD Pickup Shop events so we know the moment a parcel is lodged.
