Food & Drink
übbs
Supporting D2C and B2B fulfilment for a rapidly growing nicotine pouch brand.
Supporting D2C and B2B fulfilment for a rapidly growing nicotine pouch brand.
übbs was founded in 2022 by Neeraj Singla and Nigel Hardy, two serial entrepreneurs with decades of experience in the nicotine sector. Their vision was to create an independent, responsible and transparent nicotine pouch brand, where every pouch is produced to pharmaceutical standards using carefully selected ingredients and rigorous quality controls. Bringing together deep industry knowledge, manufacturing expertise and commercial experience, the founders set out to build a brand focused on product quality, consumer trust and long-term category growth.
Patrick Wigham, current Senior Direct-to-Consumer & Operations Manager at übbs, joined in May 2022 during the brand’s earliest stages, before the ecommerce website had launched and before a single customer order had been shipped. Working across ecommerce, operations and fulfilment, Patrick has helped support the brand’s growth from start-up phase through to a multi-channel business serving both retail and direct-to-consumer customers.
Since launch, übbs has grown rapidly across retail, wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels. The brand secured its first major retail listing with Morrisons in 2022, followed by WHSmith Travel and One Stop. Today, übbs products are stocked in more than 5,000 retail outlets across the UK, while international expansion has established a growing presence in the UAE and European markets.
What J&J offered that our previous 3PL couldn’t was a later dispatch cut-off. Our previous cut-off was 1 pm. With J&J, it’s 8 pm. The majority of our customers are buying after work, so that gap matters a lot.
Patrick Wigham, Senior DTC & Operations Manager, übbs
Why J&J Global Fulfilment?
A dispatch cut-off built for customer convenience
Nicotine pouches are a convenience product in the truest sense. People reach for them at airports, on commutes, and during a long shift. When they run out, they need more quickly. That’s not a nice-to-have; it’s the whole premise of this category.
Patrick understood that better than most. As Senior Direct-to-Consumer & Operations Manager at übbs, he was the one tracking the data. The majority of their online customers were placing orders after work. This was a problem at the time, because their previous fulfilment partner’s same-day cut-off was 1 pm.
When Patrick started evaluating alternatives, J&J’s 8 pm cut-off made the decision straightforward. It was an operational improvement that entirely transformed what übbs could offer its customers.
Weekend dispatch
The gap between a Friday evening order and the following week was another friction point. Weekend dispatch through J&J tightened that window and improved the customer experience across the board. It was the second factor Patrick raised when evaluating partners, and one of the things that put J&J ahead of the other 3PLs he spoke to.
Batch control that their previous WMS couldn’t handle
übbs’ products are date-coded with a 12-month shelf life. Their B2B retail partners require a minimum of nine months remaining on any stock they take. It’s a standard requirement in the category, but one that creates real operational complexity.
Their previous WMS, Mintsoft, couldn’t accommodate batch-level order allocation. It ran FIFO, and there was no way to override it. As retail partners became more demanding on shelf life, that limitation became increasingly difficult to manage.
ControlPort™ solved it directly: Patrick can specify exactly which batch goes against which B2B order, override FIFO where the situation requires it, and maintain the compliance his partners expect. It’s now one of the most-used features in the platform.
Our previous WMS couldn’t find a way to raise orders for a specific batch. ControlPort™ lets us do that. For B2B, where partners need nine months of shelf life, that’s been a game changer.
Patrick Wigham, Senior DTC & Operations Manager, übbs
Infrastructure ready for international growth
übbs isn’t a UK-only business and won’t be fulfilled like one for long. With European eCommerce expansion on the roadmap, and an already-established international presence, the next phase of growth demands a partner with genuine global reach. J&J’s network means übbs won’t need to start from scratch when that moment arrives.
Dispatch
8 pm
8 pm cut-off for same-day dispatch
Response
1 hr
1-hour average response time on tickets
Booked
24 hr
24 hours all new stock booked in within 1-day
How J&J has helped übbs See more, Sell more, and Grow more
A seamless transition with zero downtime
Moving a fulfilment partner is a moment when things can go wrong. For übbs, the switch to J&J was handled without the website going dark for a single day. Patrick arranged for stock to arrive at J&J before the cutover, so the brand was briefly running across two warehouses. Importantly, customers never saw any disruption. The transition was invisible to them.
The commercial side was equally smooth. The physical onboarding was organised: separate calls for different parts of the process, step-by-step guides readily available, and a team that either answered questions directly or went away and found the answer. Patrick couldn’t identify a single issue with the experience.
Onboarding with J&J was about as smooth as it can go. Consumers had no downtime at all. Everything was very well organised, and the team was incredibly attentive.
Patrick Wigham, Senior DTC & Operations Manager, übbs
A platform used every single day
Patrick and a colleague use ControlPort™ every day. A large portion of übbs’ volume is B2B, and those orders, each raised manually and often with specific batch requirements, go through the platform. Alongside that, the team runs end-of-month stock reconciliations, monitors batch freshness against their shelf-life window, reviews analytics, and manages ASNs.
The stock management piece is particularly involved. Because the product is date-coded and freshness matters to the consumer experience, übbs keeps a deliberately tight inventory: just enough stock on hand, managed carefully against run rate. If a batch goes past six months, they’re already thinking about what to do with it. ControlPort™’s reporting and stock visibility give Patrick the information he needs to stay on top of that without having to chase.
We use ControlPort™ every day for raising B2B orders, batch allocation, stock reconciliations, analytics, submitting ASNs, and more. The batch management in particular has been a game changer for how we handle B2B.
Patrick Wigham, Senior DTC & Operations Manager, übbs
Support that actually answers
Since going live in mid-March 2025, übbs has spoken with our Client Services team numerous times, which is normal for a business getting to grips with a new platform and ways of working. Responses typically arrive within an hour during working hours.
The early questions were largely platform-related: how does this work, where do I find that, has this batch been booked in correctly? As Patrick and his team have become more familiar with the system, the ticket volume has come down naturally. The support was there when it was needed most, and it delivered.
The results
Since partnering with J&J Global Fulfilment, übbs has:
- Moved to an 8 pm dispatch cut-off, enabling next-day delivery for customers ordering after work
- Added weekend dispatch, closing the gap between late-week orders and early-week delivery
- Gained batch-level order control through ControlPort™, meeting the shelf-life requirements of key B2B retail partners
- Completed a seamless warehouse transition with zero consumer-facing downtime
- Built the operational foundations for international expansion, with J&J’s global network ready to support planned US and European growth
The three things that drove the decision were later dispatch cut-offs, weekend dispatch, and batch control. Those were non-negotiable for us. Everything else, the software, the SLAs, the people, is a bonus that’s all aligned well, too.
Patrick Wigham, Senior DTC & Operations Manager, übbs