How we supported an eBay retailer in transforming their business into a £100 million eCommerce giant.

What were the clients key problems and needs?

Our client was a £500,000 eBay retailer selling taps and showers, sourced directly from China. They were facing the inevitable battle against commercial regulations set out by eBay, such as: customer management, charges and the looming risk of being banned if they did not follow them.

Looking to secure his business through diversifying and applying a multi channel approach, our client needed to find a partner who could help him establish a web platform without huge infrastructure costs.

The idea was to drive leads and conversions through a partner which would have a stake in the business, help him develop his leadership skills and consult him on how to scale up his business. However, financing this with only 3 people in the business and no digital expertise was a hurdle within itself.

What was our solution to meet the client’s goals?

Supplyant offered a viable solution to these problems. We leveraged our proprietary eCommerce platform and we were able to mitigate the high cost of a sophisticated system, therefore, we worked on a low retainer/commision model. Which fitted into the existing business model and made Supplyant stakeholders in the success of the business.

Supplyant’s founders already had 10 years of ecommerce experience trading in their own businesses, which allowed us to understand the requirements for ecommerce success. At a retainer cost of ¼ of a full time employee wage, our client had access to an entire team of digital experts.

Beyond digital expertise, we brought in a growth strategy to implement the transfer from channel seller to website and brand building. We recognised that merchandising was essential to move from a “tradesman” experience to a trusted retailer experience where we were selling products which make customers lives better.

The challenges that they still faced were…

Trust was one of the main hurdles in this multi channel approach because when selling on eBay, customer trust was automatic however, it needed to be built on a website. They also needed to continue driving traffic to eBay so sales would flourish, whilst building another audience on their website rather than simply transferring it from one to another.

What was the outcome of Supplyant working with the client?

By partnering with Supplyant, our client had a successful first month in which they saw revenue of £5,698. As time progressed they were also awarded the FastTrack award for ‘Fastest growing home and garden company on Adwords’. Our client was also coached on the principles of business we live by here at Supplyant and adopted skills that allowed him to: recruit the right people, manage a growing team and manage 3rd parties.

From a small warehouse to a new larger premises, venture capital investment and becoming a Public Limited Company (PLC). Our client’s year on year growth exceeded all expectations.

They are now in an even bigger premises, a £100 million company and still working with Supplyant closely to continue growing year on year.