RISING STARS
THE ONES TO FOLLOW: PART 12 FERGUS BELL
MANAGER’S VIEW
Fergus has risen to all challenges in a year and has seen significant growth and change within the ecommerce team. He has helped drive reform to enhance the customer experience, ensuring ease of transactions via the ecommerce channels. Fergus is commercially- minded and open to new ideas and suggestions. As a result of his initiatives and efforts, we have grown our online presence to include Amazon and eBay, both of which have seen significant growth over the year. Since Fergus launched the Bradford’s Trade Portal, nearly 3,000 customers have connected their accounts and sales through the website increased 76% in a year, with the average order value up by 36%.
He was also the instigator of the interactive tool Pave Picker, which lets customers visualise their paving choices in a variety of different layouts and has since been supplemented by a garage door visualiser, a cement visualiser and a composite door visualiser.
Since taking charge of the ecommerce team at a relatively young age, Fergus has raised the department’s commercial awareness by getting them involved in branch, customer and sales activities to enable them to understand dhow their roles can positively impact our business.
Job title: eCommerce Manager Company: Bradfords Building Supplies
What’s your role?
I head up all eCommerce and Digital Marketing for Bradfords Building Supplies.
How did you get into this industry? I spent my summers and term breaks from university labouring for a couple of steel erection and engineering firms. While I quickly determined I’m not cut out for ground working, I became very interested in the industry. When I finished my degree, I spent some time building my own business based around delivering digital solutions to small businesses. When I was approached with an opportunity to combine my passion for digital technology and my interest in the construction industry, I jumped at the chance and I haven’t looked back.
What might a typical day for you at work be? I work very closely with lots of departments within the business, so my days are always varied. A typical day will include things like project management, replying to mountains of emails, analysing sales and traffic data.
What were you doing at work last week? Last week I was meeting with a few prospective software providers as a part of our 2020 strategy.
What are your big challenges in this role? Truthfully, the biggest challenge I face is the hours in the day. As the market changes and more and more people are understanding the benefits of eCommerce and Digital Marketing, I quickly find my days consumed with queries and requests from every angle of the business!
What do you love about your role? What I truly love about eCommerce and Digital Marketing is the clarity of results. Through advanced analytics and sales data, you can easily identify the results of your efforts. I take great satisfaction in seeing the traffic to the category and the subsequent sales it generates for the business.
What do you think has been your biggest achievement so far in your role?
While I’m incredibly proud of the sales growth over the past two years, I would have to say my biggest achievement is the development and launch of our Customer Trade Portal. In November 2018 we launched a portal designed to give our customers access to our services 24/7. Here they can access order history, invoices, PODs, statements and much more.
What would you like to achieve next? Alongside general sales growth strategies, we have a few big projects in the pipeline. One that I’m particularly excited about is an app. This will allow our customers to seamlessly access their information and make orders in seconds using their fingerprint or face ID. We’re also going to integrate a modern project management tool to add further value Bradfords account customers.
What advice would you give someone new to this industry?
Don’t be intimidated. There is a huge amount to learn about the market, but there are always kind and patient people happy to help you learn and develop.
What would you say to someone who might be thinking about a career/getting a job on the merchant industry?
Do it! The construction industry is notoriously old fashioned, but as the market changes it’s presenting a wealth of opportunity to younger generations. It’s an industry full of great people, from colleagues, to customers to suppliers.
What are the changes you foresee the industry making in order to survive the future? Fortunately for me, I see the biggest changes being made in developing websites and other digital technologies to keep up with a change in demand. While there will always be great value in traditional face to face merchanting, there is undeniably a shift in the demand for more modern business practices.
BMJ talks to the Rising Stars of the
industry.Those individuals whose managers have pinpointed as regularly going above and beyond.
Rising Stars is sponsored by H+H UK
H+H UK is the largest manufacturer of aircrete building products, including the market-leading range of Celcon Blocks.
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Our focus is the development of products and systems to provide high performance buildings guaranteed to last several lifetimes.
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net December 2019
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