Overview
American Hat Makers has been making hats since 1972. Now run by second-generation owner Garth Watrous, the company handles its own purchasing, production, and warehousing across multiple locations, managing around 2,000 SKUs across DTC and wholesale channels. It's a textbook example of a DTC apparel manufacturer that needs an ERP built for brands that make, store, and ship their own products.
Before Fulfil, the entire operation ran on QuickBooks Enterprise Desktop and ShipStation. Lead times stretched to two weeks on direct-to-consumer orders. Inventory accuracy sat below 60%. There was no real visibility into picking, fulfillment, or production performance. The team would grab an order and walk through the warehouse looking for product, with barely anything in bin locations.
When it came time to find an apparel ERP that could handle manufacturing, multi-channel operations, and warehouse management in one system, the team initially chose NetSuite, but pulled the plug halfway through implementation. Four years later on Fulfil, American Hat Makers is a structurally different company.
Why NetSuite Didn't Work for This DTC Apparel Brand
American Hat Makers needed an ERP for their Shopify apparel business that could handle production, multi-channel e-commerce, and warehouse management in a single system. NetSuite looked like it could deliver on paper.
The reality was different. "NetSuite was a bummer," Garth says. "Their onboarding process, their speed was so bad. We hadn't even got it launched yet and we were watching the wheel spin. It was catastrophic."
The problems went deeper than speed. SKU management, parent-child relationships, and Amazon-specific channel support weren't as robust as advertised. "During the onboarding process, it became more and more evident that they weren't ready for really e-commerce as a whole," Garth recalls.
He pulled the plug mid-implementation. That decision led the team to evaluate alternatives including Brightpearl and Cin7 before choosing Fulfil.
See related: Fulfil vs. NetSuite for eCommerce brands
From Weeks to Hours: Transforming Lead Times
The most dramatic change has been in lead times. Before Fulfil, a direct-to-consumer order could take two weeks to ship. The team had no visibility into where things stood, and the lack of reporting from QuickBooks meant decisions were based on guesswork.
"We went from measuring lead time in weeks to measuring lead time in days," says Ori Adler, Director of Operations. "And at this point, we try to measure lead time in hours."
This shift came from having real data driving operations. Fulfil's inventory management gave the team bin-level tracking, allocation visibility on every order, and the ability to see exactly what's available to ship at any given moment.
"Every morning the first thing I do is open Fulfil and try to figure out what can we ship today," Garth says. "I always say if it ain't tied down, we ship it. If it fits, it ships."
Inventory Accuracy: From Sub-60% to 95-98%
Before Fulfil, inventory accuracy was below 60%. Stock discrepancies were constant, and the team had no way to diagnose whether problems came from process failures or human error.
"We used to have outages at all times. It was constant," Ori explains. "Today, we've gone from inventory accuracy sub-60% to 95-98%."
The improvement wasn't just about better software. It was about better visibility. Fulfil's inventory tracking records every transaction and every move, giving the team the data to identify root causes and fix them.
"You can't start to fix something you can't understand," Ori says. "Before, we just chalked everything up to 'we lost it.' Now we're like, okay, let's find it. Let's dig in. Let's track this. The data is there."
The combination of Fulfil providing the data and the team actually seeing it changed behavior across the warehouse. When people can see the numbers, they start caring about the numbers.
Cutting Pick, Pack, Ship Time by 50%
Fulfil's warehouse management batching and routing capabilities drove a 50% reduction in pick, pack, and ship time. Instead of workers zigzagging across the warehouse, Fulfil organizes efficient picking routes and groups orders for batch processing.
This also forced the team to get more disciplined about how they operated. "Fulfil made us better as a company," Garth says. "We had to tell them the location, and we were like, oh, we better identify that."
Naming warehouse locations, implementing bin-level inventory, setting up dedicated areas. These structural improvements happened because Fulfil required the team to be precise. The result is an operation that can consistently ship orders within 24 hours.
AI-Powered Micro Apps on the Production Floor
One of the most unexpected wins has been in manufacturing. American Hat Makers used Fulfil's MCP integration with Claude to build AI-powered micro apps that let production employees process size runs in minutes instead of half an hour.
"That ability to vibe code some micro apps has given us the ability to build a size run all at once through a micro app," Ori says. "It's decreased our labor processing time for a very non-technical employee, non-English-speaking employee, that will allow them to plug in a size run of a particular style."
A production employee who previously spent 30 minutes manually processing a build can now do it in a few minutes through a simple interface. No technical knowledge required. This cuts labor hours and drives efficiency across the production floor.
Data Warehouse: Reports That Are "Priceless"
The team leverages Fulfil's data warehouse to build custom reports that have become central to daily operations. Metrics that were invisible before, like ship times, out-of-stock rates, cancellation data, and allocation status, are now tracked and acted on daily.
"We're able to build out reports that are priceless for us," Ori says. "We wouldn't be able to operate without this data coming out of the data warehouse."
On the purchasing side, every item ordered is tracked cleanly inside Fulfil. The data flows back in a format that supports continuous improvement: how much shipped yesterday, whether it shipped on time, what was out of stock, what needed to be cancelled.
"Fulfil gives us the data back in a manner to continue to get better," Garth says. "Early on we had zero idea. We didn't even know that was a thing, like allocation. Now we know how to go get it out of Fulfil."
A Platform That Keeps Evolving
Both Garth and Ori point to Fulfil's continuous release cadence as a signal that the company genuinely invests in its product. For a team that heard horror stories from employees who worked with other ERPs, where months would pass without a single update, the contrast is striking.
"One of the things I always tell my team is, hey guys, it might not be available today, but the one beautiful thing about Fulfil is they're always working," Ori says. "Every time you see that update pop up, that means they care. That means they're actually putting effort into making their product better."
Garth echoes this from the AI side: "It's great to see Fulfil active on the forefront of AI. They're not letting it pass them by. We're in a good position and we're not waiting until we have to do it because we're behind. We're doing it because we enjoy it."
Why DTC Apparel Manufacturers Need a Different Kind of ERP
American Hat Makers represents a category of brand that most ERPs aren't built for: a company that produces its own goods, manages its own warehouses, and sells direct to consumer across multiple channels. The typical ERP approach of stitching together a WMS, an ERP, and middleware doesn't work when production, inventory, and fulfillment need to operate as one system. DTC manufacturers need an ERP that was designed from the ground up for brands that make and sell their own products.
Four years into running on Fulfil, the team isn't just operationally faster. They're structurally better. Bin-level inventory, allocation visibility, automated financials, AI-powered production tools, and a data warehouse that powers daily decisions. As Garth puts it: "Fulfil made us better as a company, for sure."
See related: ERP for fashion and apparel brands