For Northern Grip, a family-owned vintage store, shipping internationally meant navigating courier platforms and fishing for the best rates. Until they discovered Swotzy.
Northern Grip is a Riga-based vintage clothing brand with over 15 years of experience, offering carefully curated, high-quality secondhand garments sourced from the USA and Europe.
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Vintage clothing
August, 2023
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Northern Grip is a family-owned vintage store in Latvia, specialising in high-quality vintage goods, particularly items crafted 20 to 50 years ago. Each piece is carefully checked and restored to delight vintage enthusiasts online in the USA, Canada, and Western Europe markets.
Additionally, Northern Grip has two physical stores in Riga. These stores not only cater to local vintage lovers but also charm visitors with their unique atmosphere and hosting pretty cool events, making them a must-visit during your trip to Riga.
Northern Grip caters to international markets through a combination of website sales and sales on the Etsy marketplace, which has been highly instrumental in increasing its brand awareness, reaching a wider and more diverse customer base that leads to better sales opportunities. It also comes with its challenges, including increased shipping complexity and a need for simple and affordable shipping management solution.
“Prior to discovering Swotzy, our biggest hurdle was navigating the labyrinth of traditional postal courier services. Not only were they considerably expensive, particularly for international shipments, but their online interfaces were also far from optimal.” — Danute Jankovska, Northern Grip, Head of Export Development
The lack of user-friendly design meant NorthernGrip team found themselves grappling with multiple systems and logins, simply trying to compare carrier shipping rates.
Lauris Rutkis, Co-founder and CEO of Swotzy, shares: "Northern Grip is a perfect example of the kind of customer we build our solution for. From my experience in logistics, I know how challenging it can be to manage relationships with multiple couriers simultaneously—especially without a large IT team to handle the technical complexities. Our main goal is to provide a simple and efficient shipping solution that lets customers like Northern Grip focus entirely on growing their business, instead of spending countless hours negotiating shipping rates and juggling multiple platforms."
Northern Grip was among the first Swotzy customers to start implementing Shopify integration into their workflow with the goal of reducing the need for manual shipment detail entry and partially automating the process of purchasing shipping labels, further improving their efficiency in handling deliveries.
The impact was immediate and impressive.
Within the first month alone, Northern Grip saw their shipping costs drop by an average of 25%. But the real wins came on specific routes—where savings reached between 50–70%. All without sacrificing delivery speed or service quality.
For a business shipping vintage pieces to customers across three continents, those savings add up fast.
“Swotzy offered the ideal solution for our needs—a unified platform that streamlined the process of comparing and selecting the most suitable shipping options. The platform gives us a simple yet effective shipping management tool, allowing us to efficiently handle our distribution needs across various online sales channels."
But it wasn't just about the money. The platform itself transformed how the team worked.
"The efficiency with which we could process shipments improved significantly. I'd also like to commend Swotzy's interface—it's exceptionally intuitive. A recent addition to our team was able to master it after just one shipment, a testament to its user-centric design." — Danute Jankovska, Northern Grip Export Development Manager
Today, whether a customer is browsing from Brooklyn, Toronto, or Berlin, they can trust that their carefully selected vintage piece will arrive quickly and affordably – thanks to a shipping solution that's as thoughtful as the clothing itself.
Northern Grip successfully simplified its international shipping process by adopting Swotzy’s unified platform, reducing the complexity of managing multiple courier services
The integration with Shopify enabled automation of shipment details, significantly cutting down manual data entry and improving operational efficiency
Shipping costs dropped by an average of 25%, with specific routes seeing savings up to 70%, without compromising delivery speed or service quality
The intuitive platform design allowed new team members to quickly learn and use the system, enhancing overall team productivity
Northern Grip is a family-owned vintage store in Latvia, specialising in high-quality vintage goods, particularly items crafted 20 to 50 years ago. Each piece is carefully checked and restored to delight vintage enthusiasts online in the USA, Canada, and Western Europe markets.
Additionally, Northern Grip has two physical stores in Riga. These stores not only cater to local vintage lovers but also charm visitors with their unique atmosphere and hosting pretty cool events, making them a must-visit during your trip to Riga.
Northern Grip caters to international markets through a combination of website sales and sales on the Etsy marketplace, which has been highly instrumental in increasing its brand awareness, reaching a wider and more diverse customer base that leads to better sales opportunities. It also comes with its challenges, including increased shipping complexity and a need for simple and affordable shipping management solution.
“Prior to discovering Swotzy, our biggest hurdle was navigating the labyrinth of traditional postal courier services. Not only were they considerably expensive, particularly for international shipments, but their online interfaces were also far from optimal.” — Danute Jankovska, Northern Grip, Head of Export Development
The lack of user-friendly design meant NorthernGrip team found themselves grappling with multiple systems and logins, simply trying to compare carrier shipping rates.
Lauris Rutkis, Co-founder and CEO of Swotzy, shares: "Northern Grip is a perfect example of the kind of customer we build our solution for. From my experience in logistics, I know how challenging it can be to manage relationships with multiple couriers simultaneously—especially without a large IT team to handle the technical complexities. Our main goal is to provide a simple and efficient shipping solution that lets customers like Northern Grip focus entirely on growing their business, instead of spending countless hours negotiating shipping rates and juggling multiple platforms."
Northern Grip was among the first Swotzy customers to start implementing Shopify integration into their workflow with the goal of reducing the need for manual shipment detail entry and partially automating the process of purchasing shipping labels, further improving their efficiency in handling deliveries.
The impact was immediate and impressive.
Within the first month alone, Northern Grip saw their shipping costs drop by an average of 25%. But the real wins came on specific routes—where savings reached between 50–70%. All without sacrificing delivery speed or service quality.
For a business shipping vintage pieces to customers across three continents, those savings add up fast.
“Swotzy offered the ideal solution for our needs—a unified platform that streamlined the process of comparing and selecting the most suitable shipping options. The platform gives us a simple yet effective shipping management tool, allowing us to efficiently handle our distribution needs across various online sales channels."
But it wasn't just about the money. The platform itself transformed how the team worked.
"The efficiency with which we could process shipments improved significantly. I'd also like to commend Swotzy's interface—it's exceptionally intuitive. A recent addition to our team was able to master it after just one shipment, a testament to its user-centric design." — Danute Jankovska, Northern Grip Export Development Manager
Today, whether a customer is browsing from Brooklyn, Toronto, or Berlin, they can trust that their carefully selected vintage piece will arrive quickly and affordably – thanks to a shipping solution that's as thoughtful as the clothing itself.
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