How CBDFX cracked the UK retail market with the right 3PL

For an ambitious and growing brand, getting products stocked on the shelves of high-profile retailers is the goal. But deals with well-known names like Boots, Holland & Barrett or Superdrug are hard to get and easy to lose. Having reliable, consistent fulfillment is critical to winning contracts with major brands and meeting their needs on everything from physically signed paperwork to specific pallet types and box labelling.

CBDFX is one of the leading North American brands for commercially available products based on cannabidiol, which is a non-psychoactive compound derived from the hemp plant. Originally set up in California in 2014, CBDFX makes tinctures, oils, creams, capsules and edibles that help with sleep, pain relief and wellness.

Key supplier holds back growth:

In 2017, CBDFX began selling into the UK market through importers and two years later, it set up its own operation there so it could deal directly with retail channels. But its goal of getting in front of consumers through major chains seemed out of reach as the company hit a sizeable obstacle.

Its third-party logistics (3PL) provider was regularly getting orders wrong and there were constant problems with its inventory management system which made it hard to track issues.

This was a problem because CBD-derived products are shipped with a batch number. Each one has a certificate of analysis which need to be provided to customers. The products also have a best-before date, so any customer returns need to be processed quickly.

“Our customer service was affected because we it would take weeks if not months to process the returns. When you’re striving for excellence across the organisation and you can’t issue refunds to customers because you haven’t got the return, it’s frustrating – and you lose those customers,” remembers Carlo Buckley, who was CBDFX’s European managing director until 2024.

CBDFX had originally chosen the fulfilment provider based on word of mouth recommendations but regular meetings failed to fix the problems. “We spent our entire time fighting fires rather than progressing the business. It was holding us back rather than enabling us to grow and ultimately you want a fulfilment partner to allow you focus on growth,” Carlo adds. 

The company wanted to get a listing on Amazon but knew its logistics problems would stand in the way of landing – and keeping – the deal. As well as working with large retailers, CBDFX also wanted to sell directly to consumers through its website.

“We needed someone just as good at B2B fulfillment as business to consumer, and that’s rare to find. We also wanted to have a fulfilment partner that didn’t treat us like a number on a spreadsheet, that we could have a personal relationship with, rather than a pool of customer service reps,” Carlo says.

Identifying a new 3PL partner:

Frustrated, he asked YF, the supply chain provider that specialises in helping FMCG brands to grow and scale, to scout the market for alternative fulfillment providers.

And when it met TBM Solution’s UK operation, there was a good feeling from the start.

“Our first engagement was with Chris Welch, and Paul Hofland, who are part of the ownership of the business. We just got that very personal attention from day one. And we met Alan and Ed, who was great on the IT side. They proved every step of the way, whether it was IT integrations or facilitating what we needed, that nothing was a problem,” Carlo says.

“It was really good to have those very senior-level engagements – it wasn’t just some onboarding manager, it was senior people in the business, taking the workload on themselves. That made us feel important and made us feel we would be a meaningful customer. They had skin in the game, they were incentivised to get things right: all of these things added up,” he says.

That initial good feeling turned into a relationship that’s gone from strength to strength. CBDFX grew its business with Amazon significantly. Its B2B orders went from 10-15 a week to 30-40 a week. Online sales direct to customers now account for almost 25% of its business.

The springboard to success:

In Spring 2023, it successfully landed Holland & Barrett as a retail partner which brought in more than £410,000 in additional sales. “It took months to get that listing, so it was really important to get that right. The success of this was greatly helped by TBM,” says Sophie Roberts, operations manager with YF.

CBDFX also wanted to export into the EU market, and TBM helped to smooth what could have been a tricky process. It operates fulfillment hubs in Dublin, Ireland as well as Bedfordshire in the UK, so customers like CBDFX benefit from a single point of contact that handles all tasks involved in serving two different markets without any extra administrative overheads.

The relationship has been a huge success. Between 2022 and 2023, revenues for CBDFX UK rose from £3,015,146.01 to £3,519,283.10 – a year-on-year increase of 16.7%. “The number of units sold and revenue increase from 2022 to 2023 was only possible due to the move to TBM Solution,” adds Sophie.