It was originally started in 1970 by Tim (the owner)'s father, as a part-time venture of selling janitorial supplies to nearby businesses. 

He was in the pub, and the local butcher said, "Can you get me any blue roll and detergent?" - he went to the cash and carry to get it, added a few quid on and sold it. 

The father-son duo worked from a converted garage at home. Tim used to deliver the invoices on his BMX and help load the vans, and eventually took over the business when his father no longer could. Tim and I have been friends for a long, long time. We've been working together at Galleon for 20 years.

When we set up a website and started sending things out via mail order. Catalogues and flyers were sent to doctors, dentists and vets across the whole of the UK, which grew the customer base exponentially. We got stuck into internet advertising, which was new back then.

Soon after, we started working with Zynk, who set us up in Sage - that’s when things became much more streamlined, especially with handling our accounts and finances. 

Once we had the right systems in place, we set up multiple websites and products: Galleon Supplies, Easy Gloves, and Loo and behold.

Our fulfilment was still very manual at this point. When the order volume started to scale, especially during covid, the shipping process became time-consuming. We would do an upload into our carrier system (GFS) of a bulk of our orders, then sit and key them in, and create all the labels. When it came to pallets or international orders, the labelling process was complex.

We were also running into some challenges with the design and usability of our websites. As the order volume and variety increased, so did customer demand for fast and reliable shopping and shipping - we needed to completely update our marketplace if we wanted to scale.

We turned to Kubix to help us transform our Shopify shop. This was a catalyst for change - we updated many systems with their help, whilst the goal with Zynk was continuity and stability. 

As Shiptheory is integrated directly into Shopify, that’s where we discovered their solution. 

Seeing the automated label printing in action, early on in a meeting, was a significant moment for us. We knew we’d have the daily dispatch process fully automated by the end of the week. 

All three of these solutions have worked seamlessly in the background, and collaboratively. Kubix put together the Shiptheory Helper App on Shopify, meaning the details of labels required can be calculated all on one platform - ideal for businesses like ours where the label rules are specific and easier to access all in one place.