Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Folk
Hi Courtney, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am from Chapin, South Carolina, and went to college at Charleston Southern University. Around the time my husband and I were married, we both went into the family business, which at that time was 4 itty bitty drycleaning stores. Within a year we were the second largest drycleaning business in Columbia SC.
We felt limited by the drycleaning industry, so we looked for larger opportunities to use the same assets and expertise. We then went into the insurance restoration industry, where we helped people get their lives back together after experiencing a fire or water loss, by restoring all of their apparel and fabric items in their home.
We quickly became the largest independently owned apparel restoration company in the US, with an 85,000 sq ft drycleaning facility in Southwest Atlanta near the airport. After reaching this milestone, we again looked for a new industry where we could 100x our units per customer using the same assets and expertise.
In 2013 we founded Renewal Logistics, which provides fulfillment to the fashion industry. We support giant brands such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Carters, and we also work with medium and small fashion brands where we act as their operational partners. We receive their products into the US from their factories all over the world, and as orders come in from consumers or retailers, we pull together the proper inventory and fill those orders. We move about 1 million units a week through our facilities, which translates to over $2Billion per year in retail revenue for our brands. We operate 3 facilities in the Southeast with 2 more opening soon.
We have found there is a tremendous white space in the fulfillment industry for fashion brands, as most third party logistics companies do not want to handle the complexity of apparel with its many skus, high seasonality and complex returns. We however have 20 years of experience in apparel and absolutely love helping apparel brands grow by taking off the operational concerns from a brand’s leaders, allowing them to focus fully on bringing products to market that their customers love. We have found that our offering often saves brands 25% or more on overhead costs, as well as takes off a huge mental load that enables accelerated growth as a result. Some of our brands have seen 30+% year over year growth as a result of our partnership.
I am the CEO, and I have crafted the strategy and the vision. I am responsible for recruiting talent, bringing on large client relationships, and getting the word out about Renewal Logistics and how we can help fashion brands scale new heights.
Bryan, my husband is the COO and CTO, and we have always said that in our partnership, I get the business and he keeps the business.
We have a beautiful relationship though working together does create its own set of challenges. We love playing tennis and pickleball together, going on adventures, and love building teams and seeing people grow. We love being entrepreneurs and love Atlanta. We have lived here in Atlanta since we founded Renewal Logistics in 2013, and still have a home in Chapin SC on Lake Murray. We love water sports and all things relating to the lake.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In terms of struggles, we have taken giant risks. Our first project for Renewal Logistics was nuts. For this project we had to clean and repackage 300,000 pairs of jeans that were destined for Costco, in under 2 weeks. We had to scale up from 0 to 27,000 units processed per day, and we had 2 days to get there. We had no space or workers. We found a location, built partnerships with staffing companies, and found a way to make it happen. The goods all went in to Costco on time, and the compliance was perfect. Our client had zero chargebacks, which was a miracle because Costco is known for its impossible compliance requirements. This project put us on the map. But had it failed, we would have lost nearly $1MM in revenue, and the odds were stacked way against us. In fact the only reason we won this project is because the brand couldn’t find anyone else in the world that could or would do it.
We have also had personal challenges. A few years ago we lost our right hand person who passed away unexpectedly and left a huge hole in the hearts of our employees.
Each time we started a new business, we also had many years of learning the needs of our clients, and this is a very uncomfortable feeling, to humble yourself and admit you dont know it all. That said, there is no better place to be, as if you are open to learn and open to being humble, you can succeed at any business, in any industry, at any time. That is the absolute key to success!
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
You should know that everyone in our company thinks day in and day out about how to support the founder and the leadership team of our fashion brands, and is obsessed about taking stress and distraction away from their lives. That is all we think about. This is incredibly different from what others in our space think about. Others in our space are focused on automation to bring their own operating costs down.
We are obsessed with helping founders focus more of their time and energy on sales. We do this by ensuring that every sale a brand gets is handled cleanly and correctly, whether its a single item ordered by a teenager in the midwest, or if its 30,000 items ordered by Dillards or Nordstrom that have a long list of packaging and technical requirements. And while automation is incredibly important for us to accomplish this for our brands, we never sacrifice the founder and leadership team’s experience for automation. As an example, we will never automate our customer service. There will always be people in our facilities ready to walk over to a client’s products and make things happen.
What I am most proud of brand wise is our reputation for industry expertise, and consistent excellence. We operate very cleanly and with good conscience and seek to benefit everyone we come in contact with. This is why we have 20 year long clients and employees. I am also very proud that as employers, we are able to impact a lot of families. We employ a lot of workers who came to us with nothing. Often people who are barely getting by. I have employees who told me for the first time they were able to buy their family a turkey for Thanksgiving because we gave them a chance. Then they came again and said they were able to buy Christmas presents for their families. And then they were able to send their children to college. On the roughest days, memories like these are what keep me going.
We tell all of our workers that it doesn’t matter where you came from, or what is in your past. When you come to work here, if you work hard and don’t make many mistakes, you’ll get respect, and you have opportunities. Our mission is to provide stability and opportunities to our employees, bring relief to our clients, and be a strategic weapon for our partners. We take this to heart.
I want readers to know that if they are entrepreneurs starting a product line, they’re never too small to work with an operations partner. The brands that offload operations the fastest are those ones that grow the fastest.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I LOVE Atlanta!!
I think there is nowhere in the US and maybe in the world that offers the same mix of natural beauty, high quality infrastructure, amazing food and entertainment, and access to commerce opportunities.
What I like least is the fact that there are a lot of underserved people in need. I see homeless people in wheelchairs sleeping on sidewalks and it makes me hurt that they are suffering and barely surviving and I KNOW there is more that can be done to support those that can’t support themselves.
Pricing:
- We often save people 25% by using our warehousing rather than setting up their own warehouse
- We charge based on the space a brand occupies, and the labor they use. So they never pay for things they aren’t actually using
- We often save brands 10-20% on their cost of shipping
Contact Info:
- Website: https://renewallogistics.com
- Instagram: @renewallogistics @courtneydfolk
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RenewalLogistics/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/renewalrl
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC37aLtVhsNfRcFynzLvqbfQ
Image Credits
Credit Monica Farber
