There’s a lot to think about when you’re building instruments that have never been seen, to create music that’s never been heard. For Artiphon founders, Adam McHeffey and Mike Butera, how to box and ship them on time, every time, doesn’t need to be on the list.
Artiphon’s accessible-first instruments are game changing for the musical space. Disguised as consumer electronics, their devices allow anyone to play music regardless of skill, style or ability. Imagine a hockey puck that you can touch, tap, tilt or shake to loop drum, bass, chord and lead parts on the fly and you would have Artiphon’s Orba. Now, make it into the shape of a stick and you would have Chorda, a similarly responsive instrument that can act like a guitar, violin, piano and drums all at once.
It’s novel and it’s wildly popular, says Adam McHeffey, Artiphon’s Chief Marketing Officer. So much so, keeping their products in stock has been increasingly difficult. Flexibility has been the key to keeping Artiphon successful as they scale, and Amazon’s tools, said McHeffey, gives the Nashville-based company the flexibility it needs with one-click.
“Whether it’s inventory levels or supply chain, we need flexibility,” said McHeffey. “With Amazon we have multiple ways of selling, multiple tools for getting our instruments in players’ hands.”
Artiphon uses Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to pick, box and ship their instrument orders and Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) depending on the season and their stock. With FBA, Artiphon leverages Amazon’s logistics and fulfillment capabilities to provide their customers with fast, premium shipping at a cost that is 70% less than similar premium shipping options from other carriers.
“We can send inventory to their warehouses and Amazon will take care of everything. They’ll take care of the entire returns process, they’ll ship it out extremely quickly, and we know that we won’t have any issues with fulfillment whatsoever,” he said.
“We get to be creative, we get to inspire people to be creative,” said McHeffey. “It’s Amazon’s job to think about how to fulfill that last mile.”