How Revel Nail Polished Its Bundle Management and Boosted Efficiency by 80%

Gretchen Sorce, the DTC Manager at Revel Nail, has seen it all in her eight years with the company—from the early days as a scrappy startup to becoming a powerhouse 9-figure Shopify Plus brand. 

One thing she’s learned along the way? Managing product bundles doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems. 

In fact, Gretchen navigated the challenges of scaling Revel Nail’s operations firsthand, and one of the biggest wins in recent times has been simplifying how they manage product bundles. 

By reducing bundle fulfillment issues by approximately 80% and consolidating three separate bundling apps into a single, streamlined solution, Gretchen played a key role in making Revel Nail’s backend operations as polished as the nails they help create.

Let’s dive into Revel Nail’s story to learn how she achieved these results.

Revel Nail’s genius bundling strategy

Revel Nail is taking bundling to the next level, especially with their "Get the Look" bundles. 

They’ve created a unique experience for their customers, allowing them to recreate popular nail looks curated by their community and influencers. 

These looks are pulled from Revel Nail’s massive community—nearly 100,000 strong on their Facebook group alone—where customers constantly share their manicures and the colors they used.

Seeing how new customers flocked to this group for inspiration, Revel Nail realized they had a golden opportunity: they started using these user-generated images as the product images for their bundles. 

If a customer loves a look that someone in the community posted, Revel Nail makes it easy by bundling everything needed to achieve that look. Whether it’s three specific colors or additional tools like a brush for ombre effects, they package it all together.

This "Get the Look" approach has been a huge hit, especially with customers who are just starting out and might feel overwhelmed by the hundreds of color options available. In other words, they’re a critical part of Revel Nail’s acquisition and growth.

The team also rotates these bundles seasonally, knowing that the nail look someone wants in November isn’t the same as what they’re after in April. 

This keeps their offerings fresh and relevant, but that doesn’t mean everything is exactly simple on the backend... 

After dealing with enough logistical headaches and being bottlenecked by the limitations of their existing system, Gretchen knew it was time to switch up how they handled product bundles at Revel Nail.

The problem: The chaos of managing three apps at once

The original way Revel Nail was managing their product bundles was far from streamlined… In fact, they used not one but three separate bundling apps at once—each for different purposes.

“We really had a hard time finding one app that could do all of those things and then also present it in a way that was useful and clear to our shipping and packaging team. That was a big stumbling point for us. Sometimes they would do what we needed on the front end, but then it would get to the shipping team and they would be like, 'what is this? I don't know what I'm supposed to put in this order.' So none of that was ideal,” said Gretchen. 

There were four core problems with this initial setup: 

1. It was an absolute shipping fiasco

Every week, Gretchen would get on calls with the warehouse center to troubleshoot problems. In her words,

"It required a lot more work from me. I ended up talking to the shipping manager every five minutes because the bundle items would just be a long paragraph of product titles on a printed piece of paper, and the team often missed something in the middle of the paragraph, or the system didn't push the individual items through as it was supposed to. I spent a lot of time troubleshooting, which wasn't a good use of anyone's time."

The only way to fix this would be for bundles to be broken down into individual SKUs when syncing with the warehouse, which wasn’t something offered by any of the bundling apps the Revel Nail team was using… at the time.

2. The team wanted bundles to be more customizable

Revel Nail’s main products are its pre-selected starter kits of four colors. With over thousands of different colors available at any given time, it was easier to have these kits put together with complementary colors for the customers. No customization available.

While these kits are still available on the website, and the Revel Nail team has gone above and beyond to build bundles based on looks from various influencers and trends, they were also hearing that shoppers wanted more customization.

“They really just wanted to be able to pick the colors that were in their kit, which is fair. That's what I would want to do too. So we started looking into bundling apps and easier ways to allow customers to choose what they wanted,” Gretchen explained.

However, a fear Gretchen had with offering this level of customization was how much more difficult it would make the fulfillment part of bundles—a problem she was already spending a lot of time on every day.

3. Bundles were causing issues with other discounts

“We often want to run sales with specific conditions—like marking down some items but not everything, or offering a free gift with purchase, but excluding digital gift cards. Our developer scripts help us manage these thresholds, but the previous bundle apps we used created conflicts,” Gretchen explained. “For example, if we wanted to sell three products together at a 5% discount, the app would apply a discount to the cart, preventing customers from using additional coupons. Shopify only allows one discount per cart, which was a big stumbling block for us.”

This was particularly problematic for Revel Nail’s robust rewards program, which is a cornerstone of their customer experience. 

Their loyal customers love using their rewards points on purchases, but when a bundling app applied a discount automatically, it blocked customers from using their rewards points or taking advantage of other sales and promotions.

“That was a huge issue for us,” Gretchen said. “Our customers want to be able to use their rewards against the final cost, but if there was already a discount applied by the bundling app, they couldn’t do that. We needed a bundling app that would change the price of the bundle itself, not just apply a discount, so it wouldn’t interfere with our other promotions.”

4. There were many hiccups with keeping track of bundle inventory

One of the most significant challenges the Revel Nail team faced was with inventory management. The existing setup made it difficult to ensure that inventory levels were accurately reflected across all bundles, leading to frequent hiccups and overselling issues.

“We had a lot of hiccups with just making sure that inventory was aligned," Gretchen noted. "The bundle would keep selling even if the individual item was out of stock, and we couldn’t verify it until it was too late. That led to a lot of overselling, especially with our limited drops and seasonal colors.”

In the nail industry, where limited-edition shades are popular, overselling is a major issue. Once a seasonal shade is out of stock, it’s gone for good. But because the bundles weren’t accurately tracking inventory, the Revel Nail team found themselves in a tough spot—having to disappoint customers by telling them that their order couldn’t be fulfilled.

“If we oversell, it’s hours or even a day before we realize that the bundle is still selling and the product is out of stock. That’s a lot of unhappy customers that we have to contact and say, ‘I’m so sorry, we can’t ship this to you. We’re going to refund you.’ That doesn’t go over well. We don’t like to do that.”
- Gretchen Sorce, DTC Manager at Revel Nail

Thankfully, Simple Bundles offered a solution to each of these problems. In return, Gretchen moved to managing a single bundling app versus three. As Gretchen put it, “It’s such a simple thing, but it wasn’t something we could find elsewhere.”

The solution: go simplified and streamlined with Simple Bundles

Revel Nail's transition to Simple Bundles brought about a series of solutions that streamlined their operations and addressed the challenges they previously faced. Here’s a breakdown of the key approaches and benefits they achieved:

3. Advanced order and inventory management

Simple Bundles offered advanced order and inventory management capabilities, allowing Revel Nail to manage orders and track inventory in real-time across multiple locations. 

This feature greatly reduced the risk of overselling, particularly during limited-edition product drops. 

The transition to Simple Bundles also brought about much-needed simplification in order processing by breaking down bundles into individual SKUs, ensuring accurate inventory tracking and preventing the overselling issues that had previously caused significant frustration.

How? 

Simple Bundles syncs effortlessly with various third-party logistics (3PL), warehouse management systems (WMS), shipping software, subscription apps, and more. These integrations ensure that every aspect of Revel Nail's bundling process, from inventory management to shipping, is accurate and updated in real time.

“I feel like I sort of blacked out the time before Simple Bundles because it was so stressful just dealing with multiple versions of bundling apps and remembering that this one works this way, but this one does it a different way. Simple Bundles just simplified everything, the fact that it does all the things that we need it to do reliably from the way that it prices the bundles to the inventory to the way that it presents on the line, it just is such a weight off of my shoulders.”
- Gretchen Sorce, DTC Manager at Revel Nail

2. Full customization and dedicated bundle pages 

With Simple Bundles, Revel Nail could treat their bundles like any other product on their website, complete with dedicated product pages. This approach not only increased the discoverability of their bundles but also encouraged customer reviews, which helped boost sales and overall customer satisfaction.

But it’s not just the bundle pages themselves that are a game changer, it’s the infinite options bundle type that’s allowed customers to select which colors they want in their starter bundle kit—versus only having pre-selected kits, which is what Revel Nail could only offer beforehand. 

The Revel Nail team custom designed their bundle landing page, adding swatches to show off colors and match the branding with the rest of their website.

Through the Infinite Options bundle type, they’re also able to bypass Shopify’s 100 variant limit, giving customers thousands of potential combinations for building their Gel Polish Bundle.

3. Seamless integration with Shopify Scripts

Simple Bundles integrated seamlessly with Revel Nail’s existing Shopify scripts, enabling them to execute complex sales and promotions without any issues. 

This integration was crucial when they needed to selectively mark down certain products or offer specific promotions, such as a free gift with purchase, while excluding others like digital gift cards.

Simple Bundles is also fully compatible with Revel Nail’s robust rewards program. Unlike previous bundling apps that applied automatic discounts and interfered with other promotions, Simple Bundles adjusted the price of the bundle itself. 

This adjustment allowed customers to use their rewards points and participate in additional sales events without restrictions, creating a smoother and more satisfying shopping experience.

The results: The sweet relief of simplified bundling

Revel Nail saw about an 80% reduction in bundle fulfillment issues—going from daily headaches that Gretchen had to constantly help the inventory and shipping team sort out, to maybe dealing with a hiccup once a month.

One of the biggest wins was being able to ditch the three separate bundling apps they were juggling and replace them with just one. This made things way less complicated and almost completely wiped out the errors the shipping team used to run into.

Gretchen summed it up perfectly: “If I hear from the shipping team once every couple of weeks that something didn't work right or there's a glitch, that’s a huge win. Before, it was daily. I was talking to them all the time.” 

The team used to rely on sticky notes to keep track of what went into each bundle, which, as Gretchen put it, was “ridiculous.” The level of confusion they dealt with was off the charts, and now it’s down to maybe once every few weeks something quirky happens, but it’s a night-and-day difference. 

“You can’t even imagine how grateful I am not to have to deal with that all the time anymore.”
- Gretchen Sorce, DTC Manager at Revel Nail

A simple solution with big results

Simple Bundles bypasses Shopify’s variant limits, integrates with Shopify POS, and plays nicely with ERP and 3PL systems by splitting bundles into individual SKUs to track inventory with real-time stock sync.

Try it for free and create up to three bundles, with access to all bundle types, on the Shopify App Store here.