In larger organisations, it's easy for good ideas to get lost or slowed down by the weight of bureaucratic inertia. Keeping things small and agile, with a startup mentality, helps create an environment where delivering excellent service is a natural outcome, rather than something that needs to be manufactured by documents and management.

Jump to more detail on how we make our service:

• Effective
• Sustainable
• Responsible

Effectiveness

A small team is an effective one. We don't have the spare capacity to tolerate wasted time, excess materials and pointless processes, so we're constantly looking for ways to simplify and streamline what we do.

In a small team, it's easier for people to speak up, share ideas and improvements to our processes. And that's exactly what everyone who works at Eirios is encouraged to do. We quickly evaluate the pros and cons of any change, and if it works, we just do it.

Our approach isn't a single minded pursuit of efficiency. That leads you down the road of bigger warehouses, larger teams, more managers and written policies for everything. Efficiency in process may come at great cost in a team's morale, for example. Instead, we're looking for effectiveness. How do we best deliver an excellent service in line with our values of being local, green and customer focused.

One example of this approach is that we hand sign every packing slip for certain brands: "Your order today was packed by..." Looking at this from a short-term commercial standpoint, it seems like an inefficient thing to do - the extra time (cost), the additional thing to remember, the initial effort of redesigning the packing slip template. But we know this is a tiny price to pay for creating that extra little connection between you and your customers.

We have our ways of doing things, but if you need a particular service - for example, a leaflet in your packages, or a specially protective packaging method - then we can easily blend that in with our offering. Just ask.
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Sustainability

Your customers nowadays take a commitment to environmental sustainability as a given, rather than a nice-to-have. And they want to know that being green isn't just window dressing, but built in to your product - and your partnerships. There's a lot that fulfilment companies can do in this space, and as we work towards our ISO 14001 certification, we're minimising waste and emissions in several ways, for example:
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Energy use dependent on need: our heating and electricity usage is kept to a minimum and turned off whenever the building is empty, rather than set on an inflexible timed schedule

Re-using and recycling 80%+ of our waste: cardboard boxes are flattened and reused, pallets taken in are reused for shipping out or passed on to local retailers, bubble wrap and other packaging materials are kept and reused

Maintaining reliable communications with the couriers to prevent wasted and inefficient pick-ups and drop-offs

By maintaining a small facility and employing locally, travel emissions are kept to a minimum

Having run our own ecommerce companies and worked with manufacturers to develop more sustainable packaging, we're also able to help you develop in this area. If you'd like more information about what we're doing to minimise our environmental footprint and how we can help you do the same, we'd be delighted to talk further.
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Responsibility

We take our obligations as an employer seriously and see our staff as equals. Not only is this the right thing to do, it's also effective. An engaged team means better quality work and less time lost to absences and turnover. In practice this means:
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We pay above the National Living Wage and ensure no one is expected to work unreasonable hours

Everyone at Eirios is treated with the courtesy and respect all human beings deserve

Regular team reviews give everyone a chance to share their ideas for improving the service

We endeavour to foster a cooperative and supportive environment where everyone can enjoy coming to work