Cahoot Fulfillment

Great product, saves a lot of time printing labels. Highly recommend for anyone looking to spend less time printing labels.

In-Depth Analysis of Cahoot.ai

Pros:

-Speed of Implementation: Cahoot.ai can be quickly integrated into your operations, potentially reducing the time to start utilizing their fulfillment network.

-Valid Tracking Rate: The tracking rate is generally reliable, ensuring your customers receive accurate shipment updates.

-Network Proximity to Customers: The distributed network can place your products closer to customers, potentially reducing delivery times if you can manage the logistical complexity of constant replenishment.

-Label Automation: Automating label creation can save time and reduce manual errors in the shipping process.
Commitment to improving: Cahoot.ai does appear to have a goal of creating and improving their service offerings.

Cons and Their Perils:

No Control Over SFP Program Metrics:

Peril: The sales pitch of Cahoot’s command of SFP fulfillment, can contrast with Amazon’s program eligibility - which is independent of Cahoot. This distinction leads to false expectations that a contract with Cahoot is your gateway into the SFP Prime program. Even with excellent fulfillment performance, achieving and maintaining a 93.5% on-time delivery rate, controlled by independent carriers (UPS, USPS) failed for this writer’s company despite a total order volume of over 1000 orders shipped. This lack of control means committing to and investing in Cahoot.ai as an SFP solution might tie you into a particular contract that fails to deliver the benefits of SFP, potentially wasting valuable resources and time without gaining the competitive advantage of the Prime badge.

Reluctant Initial Consulting:

Peril: Small businesses requiring more hands-on guidance may find the consulting support insufficient after the initial onboarding. This reluctance can lead to misunderstandings of the program's intricacies or operations, resulting in implementation errors and inefficiencies that can affect overall business performance, health, and customer satisfaction, as well as straining the relationship between parties.

Negative Weekly Cash Flow:

Peril: Paying advance shipping deposits weekly can strain your cash flow significantly, especially if your sales cycle and receivables won’t align with these outflows (notably for Amazon Sellers). This negative cash flow can cripple small businesses, forcing them to either seek additional funding or risk insolvency.

Exclusive Use of Cahoot’s Shipping Rates:

Peril: Locking into Cahoot’s shipping rates for a specific period can prevent you from leveraging potentially cheaper or more favorable rates from other providers, increasing your overall shipping costs and reducing profitability.

Handling and Box Fees:

Peril: Additional fees for handling (fulfillment) and external boxes can potentially double your shipping costs, especially if those boxes that fit your items are not standard boxes being stocked. These fees erode margins, particularly for businesses with tight profit structures, making it harder to compete on price or invest in growth.

No Net Cost Savings:

Peril: Instead of saving costs, Cahoot’s service fees are added back into your cost of goods sold (COGS), negating the perceived financial benefits. This hidden cost structure can mislead businesses into thinking they are saving money when, in fact, their operating expenses remain unchanged or increase.

High Margins Required:

Peril: Cahoot’s model demands high margins to absorb the additional costs of outsourcing fulfillment. Low-margin businesses will struggle to remain viable under this model, as the added expenses can quickly erode already thin profit margins.

Significant Cash Reserves Needed:

Peril: The necessity for substantial upfront cash reserves to cover deposits and ongoing costs means only businesses with strong cash positions can participate. This requirement excludes smaller, less financially robust businesses and adds significant financial risk for those that do.

Increased Time and Effort:

Peril: The additional time required to manage maintenance issues and the overall fulfillment process can divert resources from other critical areas of your business, such as operations, sales, and customer service, leading to potential declines in overall business performance.

Immature Software:

Peril: While improvements can be rolled out, an immature software platform can lead to operational inefficiencies, errors, and unexpected downtime. Relying on such a system can disrupt your fulfillment process, leading to customer dissatisfaction and potential loss of business.

Untimely Communication:

Peril: Decisions that affect your operations, such as suspension, in our experience are sudden and without warning. These types of issues not being communicated timely, can lead to poor planning and reaction times, as well as jeopardize the health of your business on platforms like Amazon where you can have hundreds of orders that are due to ship completely fail to be processed, leaving you with a greater than 4% Late Order Rate. This lack of transparency can cause operational disruptions, missed deadlines, dissatisfied and ultimately, account suspensions. Particularly in the event that Cahoot decides to suspend fulfillment operations because of contractual issues.

Non-Refundable EFTs:

Peril: If there are Non-refundable electronic fund transfers, it means that even in cases of disputes or service dissatisfaction, you may not recoup your funds. This policy in practice increases financial risk, making it harder to manage cash flow and recover from unexpected issues.

Conclusion:

Cahoot.ai’s shortcomings pose significant risks, especially for small and low-margin businesses, especially in exchange for contracted services. The lack of control over SFP metrics, coupled with substantial upfront costs, handling fees, and negative cash flow, can strain financial resources and operational efficiency. The potential for miscommunication and immature software further exacerbates these issues, making Cahoot.ai a high-risk option for businesses without strong cash reserves and high margins. Careful consideration and thorough understanding of these risks are essential before committing to their services.

This is a real customer review and is aimed at helping others make an informed decision before deciding to proceed with this company.

Highly recommend this platform. It has truly helped streamline my business. Easy to use. Customer service is second to none!

“Cahoot has amazing technology in addition their large nationwide warehouse network, sort of like Amazon FBA but without the Q4 surcharges, inventory restrictions and hassles. My inventory is received in 2 business days in Cahoot as opposed to waiting for weeks without communication from Amazon. Besides supporting my 2-day deliveries nationwide using economical ground shipping, I can also use the Cahoot shipping software to print all the shipping labels in my own warehouse for my orders that I need to ship out. All the labels come out automatically without any human input which saves me a lot of time and money. The support team is super responsive, competent and GREAT to work with. I am happy to say that Cahoot under promised and over delivered! And, btw their Shopify native integration works well and is super reliable.”

I use Cahoot to process our shipping labels. They still need some work to do to get the kinks out - hopefully they will get this done in a timely manner. Will continue to use Cahoot for the remainder of the year.

I highly recommend Cahoot to anyone looking to outsource fulfillment for their business. They go above and beyond to help make sure your needs as a business are met. I reached out to 20 other 3PL's, and fulfillment centers. Cahoot was the best option for business relations, services, and pricing by far. Manish believed in us and was super excited to get started. He not only helped us grow as a business but helped us grow personally through recommending great books such as "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin. I cannot imagine another day without using Cahoot's services. They have made fulfillment effortless. I recommend them to anyone looking for a great genuine business partner while looking to scale their business through outsourcing fulfillment.

Since working with Cahoot, their customer service has been nothing but exceptional. They really make you feel like you’re in good hands and ensure to make your life easier. The service is affordable, reliable and highly scalable so you don't feel concerned about growth. Cahoot is organized in all aspects and you can definitely trust them to complete the job at hand!

Cahoot does a great job with our storage and shipping. The connection to our shopify account was easy and they process orders super fast. Their support team is super responsive and Jeremy specifically on the account management team has been super helpful. We're new to Shopify and 3PL so his help has been great as we've started.

We onboarded with Cahoot 4 months ago (at the beginning of Q4) with the single goal of reducing our 3PL costs. We have been happy to see considerable savings on SPD costs instantly. What I was not expecting was the excellent level of service from the Cahoot team. They took care to analyze our business in detail before we onboarded so they were certain they could fulfill their promise of service and cost.

The onboarding process was extremely easy. The Cahoot team did all the heavy lifting and the Cahoot platform is simple and easy to use. Working with Cahoot provides us with the flexibility to store product near our customers. The team continue to work with us to ensure we distribute our inventory to the right locations across the US to reduce our SPD label costs.

Rather than buying an app or a service, it feels like we have begun a great partnership with the Cahoot team who have a genuine interest in helping our business to succeed.

Good support and always willing to work things out. Very responsive to issues. We appreciate their flexibility and integrity.