MERCHANT FOCUS: BPS


The BPS e-commerce journey started about seven years ago with a website that offered a limited level of functionality and an even more limited range of stock – mostly doors, ironmongery, garden sheds and play area equipment.


“We used to do about £50k in on-line sales annually within the context of a business that was turning over about £15million,” he adds. “We could only put products on the website that had the right product data on our ERP system, BisTrack, and stock was extremely limited.


“That is why, when eCommonSense came along about 18 months ago, we instantly saw the potential of what their product data solution offered. Also, the website would have the structure and design simplicity that our existing solution lacked. They understood our customers, and this was reflected in the efficient customer journey”


It took another 12 months of hard work before BPS “went live” last September and started with a soft launch meaning hardly any marketing was done to ensure that the business could gradually prepare for the impact of increased web sales.


The company immediately saw sales double to up to around £10k a month. A hard launch followed in January of this year and sales started to climb dramatically.


Then Covid-19 hit. Everything stopped. “When coronavirus hit, the world of retail changed in an instant. We shut down all seven branches on 31 March and took the website offline as we had no way to service orders,” says Battin. “Fortunately, we kept all our ecommerce staff on and spent the next three weeks putting more content on the site and sent out marketing emails to existing customers.


“We went from having 300 accounts to 800 in just three weeks. When we opened up for business online on the 22 April, we offered a click and collect or phone and collect service. “On the first day the website received 100 orders, with an average order size of £90


which was up from £70. This then repeated day after day. Within the first 30 days we had orders of about £170k – more than we had done in an entire year with the previous website”


“We also were getting a new customer base – suddenly the retail customer was coming to us as the website did not have the same barriers and many of the retail DIY shops were still shut,” he adds.


On-line business is now making up around 15-20% of total turnover. If the on-line business were a physical branch, it would in itself be equivalent to one of our largest. “We have had to learn very, very quickly. We wanted an evolution with a mapped-out e-commerce growth strategy – instead we got a revolution and had to create things on the fly very quickly. We haven’t necessarily got everything right and we are still learning, but if we had not had the new e-commerce system, we would have seen only 50% of the orders we expect at this time of the year.” Battin believes that the exciting thing for BPS is that it is now opening up new markets and opportunities. “The retail customer is no longer intimidated, so this area is expanding massively for us. We are also looking to see how we can


June 2020 www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net


improve the customer experience even more, with self-service style order points in branches, like McDonalds, so that we can reduce wait times. We are also hoping that our staff will embrace the changes and the new system will encourage new staff to join us” BPS is now looking to get 100% of its products online – currently it is about 70% but this process does rely on getting accurate data from suppliers.


“This has been the hardest thing” says Battin. “Product data – it really is the number one issue that merchants and suppliers need to sort out.


“We are also looking to integrate our Amazon shop into the portal to reduce back-office paperwork and we are close to launching another site specializing in architectural ironmongery in the next month. Our on-line presence is opening up the market to us”


Overall, BPS believes it has come out of the other side of the coronavirus crisis full of hope and planning for expansion into new markets into the future. It will be a valuable lesson for many other merchants who may not have been so fortunate, but hopefully shows a brighter path may be ahead. BMJ


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