In the world of high-end footwear, the words "affordable" and "designer name" are rarely seen in the same sentence. It doesn't take a fashion expert to tell you that designer shoes carry a hefty price tag - sometimes in excess of US$400 for certain pairs.

On the same token though, it doesn't take a financial expert to tell you that someone who can sell these same shoes for a cheaper price will make a profit.

From the looks of it, New York City businessman Jonathan Garriss understands this concept quite well.

Starting off as a small baseball card retailer on eBay, Garriss and his business partner started Gotham City Online. The Company has transformed to a online shoe store and they have spent the past five years building a business that delivers high-end shoes at low-end prices.

Gotham City Online, named in homage for the Big Apple's famous fashion scene, has been doubling in size each year thanks to remembering these two simple truths while employing the power of UPS to make it happen.

The Challenge

Gotham City Online is able to offer designer name shoes at low prices by buying excess inventory from manufacturers and retail stores. Once this merchandise is purchased, the shoes are sent to the company's warehouse in New Jersey for processing.

With inventory turning over every 30 days, Gotham City Online wanted to maximize productivity in its fulfillment operation.

"We had one person who was packing the shoes into boxes and a second person that would stamp the box for shipping," he said. "It seemed that handling the same package twice didn't make much sense."

As time progressed, Gotham City Online realized that fulfillment was going to be a primary bottleneck, especially when orders had increased from 400 per day to over 800 per day in the past year.

Compounding the problem was the very nature of online shoe sales. Since you can't try on a pair before purchasing them, Gotham City Online needed an efficient returns method to support the company's growth.

The Solution

Thanks to several UPS solutions, Gotham City Online was able to successfully address a number of its issues.

"By integrating the UPS shipping tools, we were able to combine our pack and ship functions," he said. "Only one person now handles an order. … We've boosted the productivity in our fulfillment department by 100 percent."

As for customer returns, UPS's Authorized Return Service® (ARS) was implemented to meet the demand. Instead of putting the burden of returning items on the customer, ARS allows Gotham City Online to offer an easy return method for the customer.

ARS is a service which provides return labels inside the package when it is shipped - making it easier for customers to return orders. While in transit, customers have the ability to track packages and Gotham City Online is able to manage expected returns.

Back at Gotham's fulfillment center, ARS allows for better inventory management while freeing up the company's call center workload.

Gotham City Online uses the World Ease software suite to handle its growing overseas orders - which currently accounts for 10 percent of sales.

Using UPS WorldShip®, World Ease can consolidate prelabeled multiple shipments into one consolidated shipment for easier processing and faster customs clearance.

Once the shipment clears customs, it's separated back into smaller shipments for final destination delivery throughout a country by UPS.

This reduces delivery time, minimizes errors and can reduce Gotham City Online's need to store inventory in a warehouse in the destination country for re-labeling to the final recipient.

Now with UPS on board, Gotham City Online continues to blossom while establishing itself as a online retail force - not bad for a business that occupied 100 square feet of a fifth floor walk-up apartment in Manhattan only five years ago.