Smaller players are priced out, typically relying on a cumbersome mix of email, text, and phone to coordinate complex inventory movements
It's siloed
Sharing information across organizations is cumbersome and severely constrained, leading to poor planning and decision-making.
It's inaccurate
Digital systems don’t match rapidly changing physical reality, leading to out of stock and shrink.
It's brittle
Users need to bend their own processes to match the software, or pay a hefty price to build and maintain customized extensions.
Transforming our food system
We built our own inventory management and ecommerce system from scratch.
A seamless realtime linkage of physical reality with your inventory systems and your ecommerce platform, reducing waste and driving profitable growth. And it’s very affordable.
Features for tracking your own inventory
Unique Item Tracking Starling tracks “this” case of apples rather than just “a” case of apples.
Rich data Starling tracks the destination, and condition of each item, with text, pictures, and video.
Realtime information Starling updates at the speed of the internet, available instantly to all authorized users.
Flexible features Starling bends to match your processes, not the other way around.
Features for buying and selling with others
Accurate availability The product on display is tied to real physical inventory eliminating out of stock problems.
Fast transactions Realtime inventory visibility enables one-click ordering and facilitates higher transaction volumes.
Collaborative decision making Sharing information with supply chain partners is as easy as Google Docs - choose Private, Read Only, or Read/Write - enabling better planning and reducing waste.
Genuine provenance Know where the product came from and how it got to you
Customers love the speed and flexibility of Starling.
As farmers, the Starling platform has enabled us to create new connections within a fractured food system while addressing the pressing issue of nutrition security during these dire times.”
Sally Robson
@s_robson1
Product support comes first when we are considering a new service. Do yourself a favour and choose Ollie, we have found the support to be second to none.
James Hillier
@j_hillier
It's hard to overstate how useful Ollie has been to our business. Kudos to the team - I'm speechless.
Debra D
@debd
I was already in love with the product, but the after-sales support was what sealed the deal for me!
Christopher C
@chris_c
I knew from the moment I saw it that this was the template for our business. So much flexibility and variety. I've been having a blast creating our business's website!
Sam Kent
@skent
When I saw how easy it was to copy and paste the sections I was sold. Ollie has everything we needed and more to create a site for our client – we will be repeat users for sure.
Karina Ho
@karina_h
Using Ollie made it easy to experiment with different layouts and design combinations.
Clara Walsh
@c_walsh
We've been using it to quickly build sites for clients, then customising quickly via the style guide. It's SOOOOOO easy.
A feature overview
Why customers are choosing Starling
Affordable Solution
The Starling app is free and runs on your phone. Barcode labels cost pennies and the first 30 are free. The (optional) analytics module starts at $99 / month.
Flexible features
Customizable Starling features match your unique use case. Want to donate to the food bank? Want to recall only the cases received last Tuesday? No problem.
Realtime Information
As items are sold, received, or placed into shrink, the system updates instantly for all users. No waiting for batch processes to complete.
Built by Food Veterans
Our team boasts decades of hands on experience buying, selling, and moving food at organizations large and small.
Rugged Systems
If information is scanned outside of internet coverage, data is stored and syncs immediately when connectivity returns.
Top-notch support
Run into trouble? Don't fret, our friendly support staff have you covered.
Grow your business with collaborative ecommerce and accurate inventory.
Sign up here to create an account and get a free welcome kit including 30 barcode labels to get you started.
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Fast and affordable implementation
Use for ecommerce, inventory or both
Reduce inefficiency and waste
Delight your customers and staff
Common Questions
What’s wrong with the existing array of WMS and e-commerce software available in the market?
A lot of interesting WMS/ERP software has been designed to help manage a single organization’s inventory, and there are a lot of existing e-commerce software solutions designed to help market that inventory electronically. What we’ve found is that (a) existing e-commerce and WMS systems are very difficult to integrate together, with batch processes leading to lags, confusion, and exceptions, (b) neither of them maintain tight linkage to physical reality, often relying on cycle counts entered by hand, (c) both of them focus within the borders of the organization, with poor communication to supply chain partners up and downstream, (d) implementation costs and timelines for both can be enormous, even for fairly small firms, and (e) they both tend to “break” without power or internet connectivity.
How is Starling different?
Starling has been developed with the full supply chain in view, founded and backed by leaders who have experienced the costs of misinformation firsthand, who know the importance of accurate, realtime visibility upstream and downstream to mitigate exceptions, out of stocks, spoilage, and missing items. Starling can serve as both your e-commerce solution and your WMS because your inventory can be made visible to whomever you authorize in realtime, eliminating confusion and misinformation. Starling is tightly linked to physical reality through the Starling barcode labels placed on each inventory item and each warehouse location and each truck. Starling is designed with the assumption that you want to share information with suppliers and customers, though it’s always within your easy control to change / modify their access (much like changing the Share settings on a Google Sheet). Starling is designed for very simple onboarding, making it realistic to expect your suppliers to engage with the e-commerce portion of the solution with very limited training, delivered by phone or a five-minute video. Finally, Starling is designed to function even when users lose internet connectivity or leave cell phone service range. Starling is designed to “catch up” when connectivity is restored.
Part of the value-proposition for users is easy onboarding. It really can be as simple as (1) create account, (2) download app, (3) order labels, and (4) start tracking inventory and selling/ordering produce in realtime.
What is Starling’s mission?
Starling is designed to benefit the whole supply chain, especially the smaller players that heretofore haven’t been able to afford the kind of realtime systems employed (internal only) at places like Amazon, Instacart, and Uber. Our mission is to:
• Empower small producers to access large supply chains and humanize the food industry. • Reduce waste and promote efficiency with digitized supply chains. • Create traceable and transparent data sets to democratize information in the food system.
In the future, we believe that supply chains with realtime information sharing and deep transparency will substantially outperform those that remain locked in information silos.
How does Starling enhance my supply chain?
Starling is designed from the ground up with the full supply chain in view. Competing solutions are oriented around individual firms, leading to an inherent “silo” mindset between producers, distributors, and retailers. In contrast, Starling is designed for realtime information sharing and cooperation across all these players. Our fundamental premise is that realtime information sharing across the full supply chain will benefit all of the players, making the system more flexible to shocks and more efficient in planning. Whenever two players in the supply chain (e.g. a distributor and a producer, or a distributor and a retailer) use Starling, they increase the speed, accuracy, and richness of their communication. This inherently reduces waste, reduces costly errors, and increases service quality. Because Starling is app-store easy to use and very affordable, even small producers can quickly digitize their operations and participate in the Starling-powered supply chain.
What is the Starling system?
The current Starling system has three components: App (WMS & e-commerce) Allows users across the supply chain to gain realtime visibility into the current state and history of an item, and to contribute to the information “known” about the item. Managed by authorization and permission systems similar to Google Drive. Runs on phones, laptops, and handheld scanners. Labels (physical barcode labels) Applied to a physical object at any point that it “enters” a Starling supply chain, most often the initial local producer. (Importantly, these must be generated by Starling Systems, Inc. (SSI) in order to be recognized by Starling -- no bootlegging.)
Analytics Module Database, dashboard, and bespoke analytics tooling to optimize business processes based on the information collected by Starling.
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