How Ecommerce Distributor Flat River Group Expanded Fast Without Adding IT Headcount

Learn how ecommerce distributor Flat River Group expanded to Walmart, Target’s marketplace, eBay, Macy’s, Michaels, Oriental Trading, and soon to be Temu within just eight months without adding additional headcount by partnering with Rithum.

• Expanded to Walmart, Target, eBay, Macy’s, Michaels, Oriental Trading, and soon to join Temu, within eight months.
• Manages listings, pricing, and stock in one place.
• Overcame complex item-type-driven taxonomy with Rithum’s error reporting to refine product attributes.

Remember the excitement of opening a long-awaited gift to find a toy you really wanted? That feeling of anticipation hasn’t changed, but how you buy it has. Today, a child’s favorite social media content creator unboxes a toy that overnight becomes a must-have item. A toy you had no idea existed moments ago is now impossible to find. Flat River Group ensures toys and games are available where shoppers look online. They turned to Rithum to take the manual work out of listing products, keep inventory accurate in real time, and handle fulfillment for thousands of SKUs across sales channels like Walmart, Target, and Amazon. In just one-year, Flat River Group expanded to six additional channels without adding a single person to their IT team because they used Rithum.

Challenge: Limited growth due to IT constraints

Flat River Group had the expertise and network to scale their business, but technical limitations held them back. Without a dedicated IT infrastructure for marketplace integrations, adding new platforms required substantial internal resources, which Flat River Group did not want to allocate. One thing was clear: the company’s current process was not sustainable. Their customers rely on them to manage pricing parity, consistent brand experience, and smooth operations. This required the right partner.

“Life without Rithum was limited. Our focus was to accelerate ecommerce growth, but our commitment to a 1P model often limited our ability to expand into new marketplaces,” said Kristopher Nickolaus, Director of Sales, Flat River Group.

Results: Expands across Walmart, Target, eBay, Macy’s, Michaels, and Oriental Trading in eight months

Rithum’s automation and marketplace management allowed Flat River Group to scale its ecommerce business to six channels without adding IT headcount by using a hybrid of first-party (1P) and third-party (3P) commerce.

“We hired Rithum as our strategic partner to do a lot of the heavy lift for us and connect to Walmart’s platform, Target’s marketplace, eBay, Macy’s, Michaels, Oriental Trading, and soon to be Temu—all within just eight months. We could not have done that internally with our own IT staff.”

Kristopher Nickolaus, Director of Sales, Flat River Group

Flat River used Rithum to manage listings, pricing, and stock without juggling multiple systems. They kept control over how their brand showed up across every channel.

“With Rithum, we can now leverage Walmart’s facilities to pull inventory across three different listings: 1P dropship, 3P dropship, and 3P Walmart Fulfillment, each with unique pricing and solutions. This gives us a true basket of options to optimize sales and reach more customers,” Nickolaus said.

Flat River also overcame complex item-type-driven taxonomy by using Rithum’s error reporting to refine product attributes.

Scalability for future growth through social commerce

Going forward, Flat River Group plans to explore additional platforms like TikTok Shop and expansion into Canada, Mexico, and EU markets through Walmart WFS.

About the company:

Flat River Group is a high-performance commerce accelerator specializing in ecommerce marketplace expansion. They help small to mid-sized brands, particularly in the toys and gaming industry, scale their online sales by managing the complex backend of marketplace integrations, logistics, and brand management. With three distribution centers spanning one million square feet, Flat River Group enables brands to sell on major marketplaces like Walmart, Target, Amazon, eBay, and more. Brands can do this without building their own infrastructure.