Founded in 2011, Rover is the world’s largest network of 5-star pet sitters and dog walkers. The platform connects pet parents with care providers across the country. As the business grew, the team started looking at ways to diversify and create new revenue streams.
Rover had already launched an e-commerce store to sell practical products to its community of pet care providers — printed promo cards and promotional materials. But the site was running on an unreliable platform and underperforming.
“The site at the time was being hosted on an unreliable platform and it was honestly just becoming really problematic,” says Marketing Manager Kristin Gorsuch. “But we knew there was more potential there, so we shut it down and I took on the role of Project Manager for the relaunch.”
Rover relaunched on Shopify, expanding the product range to include gifting items like mugs and tote bags. Then came a bigger idea: move into pet supplies, where the brand already had deep credibility through its Dog People blog.
“Up until that point, we’d only focused on fun products for pet sitters, but we realized we’re not the experts in mugs, we’re the experts in dogs! For years, we’d been running a blog, Dog People, which offers recommendations on all kinds of pet supplies, so moving into selling things we already knew a lot about felt like a natural extension,” says Kristin.
The Challenge: Expanding into Drop-Ship without the Team to Run It
Drop-shipping was the right model for the expansion — no inventory risk, no warehouse, and the flexibility to test the category before committing to wholesale volumes.
“We knew we didn’t want to commit to the inventory and volumes associated with wholesale and instead saw that drop-ship offered a more nimble solution. Drop-ship provided us with a way to easily test into this new revenue stream without committing to owning inventory.”
But Kristin’s team was lean. They had no bandwidth to manually send purchase orders to vendors, manage tracking, or handle fulfillment themselves. And Kristin had three distinct types of vendors she needed to work with: vendors with their own Shopify stores, less tech-savvy suppliers who didn’t use Shopify, and large retailers in the pet space.
“I didn’t really know where to start in terms of working with vendors. I’d identified three main types of vendor I wanted to work with — vendors with their own Shopify sites, less tech-savvy companies who didn’t use Shopify, and larger retailers in the pet space. But I had no idea how to onboard them, let alone handle vendor routing and order management.”
“I needed to find a solution that would make vendor routing zero work on my end. If we couldn’t find a way to automate the process of connecting with vendors and pulling off drop-shipping, we wouldn’t be able to expand.”
Kristin asked Shopify for recommendations. They pointed her to Duoplane.
The Solution: Complete Automation Across Every Vendor Type
Duoplane handled all three of Kristin’s vendor types, each in the most appropriate way — all fully automated on her end.
Automated PO sending. For vendors with Shopify stores, connecting took one click. Once connected, Duoplane automatically parsed sales orders into vendor purchase orders and sent them to the right supplier. For less technical vendors, orders were parsed and emailed automatically. For larger retailers with more complex connectivity requirements, Duoplane got on the phone, walked them through setup, and ensured the connection worked correctly.
Automated order tracking. For connected vendors, tracking information automatically flowed back to Rover and on to customers — with no manual steps on either side. For vendors who emailed tracking details, Duoplane parsed the data, uploaded it to Rover’s portal, and passed it on to the customer automatically.
Inventory feeds and syncing. The feature Kristin describes as a “game-changer.” Duoplane connects to vendors’ real-time inventory, which means Rover’s product listings are always accurate. If a product goes out of stock at the vendor, it automatically updates as unavailable on Rover’s store — preventing customers from ordering something that can’t be fulfilled.
“Inventory syncing ensures our product listings are accurate and up-to-date and it has had a hugely positive impact on our customer service.”
Installation was straightforward. Onboarding a new vendor meant creating an account, entering their email address, and Duoplane handled the rest.
“Another thing that stood out was that you don’t need technical expertise to use Duoplane, because it’s extremely user-friendly. The app has a clean, clear look, and its software could connect with our systems — and those of our vendors — with no coding required on our side.”
Duoplane has taken all the work away from us, allowing us to pivot into this entirely new space and scale at an unprecedented level.
— Kristin Gorsuch
The Results: 1,113% Revenue Growth and 10 New Vendor Partnerships
Before Duoplane, Rover couldn’t expand their e-commerce store because they didn’t have the in-house capacity to manage vendor routing manually. With Duoplane, they could.
Rover partnered with 10 new vendors they couldn’t have worked with previously. Pet supply revenue grew 1,113%, with 300% growth in the category every quarter. And beyond the numbers, Duoplane changed how Rover thinks about new opportunities.
“Duoplane enables us to pivot quickly — and getting a new vendor relationship in motion is so fast. Sometimes, I’ll have a call with a potential vendor, and by the end of it, they’ll be integrated into Duoplane. Duoplane takes out so many steps and really opens us up in terms of what we can do, because we no longer have to look at integration as a blocker.”
“I just can’t praise Duoplane’s customer service team enough — I’m yet to throw them a scenario where they don’t find a solution quickly. I am always impressed that whoever’s on the other side of the conversation, they’re fluent in Duoplane, which is so valuable, and we always feel our business is their priority.”
“Duoplane is the unicorn solution — a turnkey answer that is perfectly aligned with our needs.”