IT: COLLIER & CATCHPOLE


COLLIER AND CATCHPOLE TRANSFORMS TO BE FIT FOR DIGITAL AGE


With its roots stretching back more than 150 years, one family-owned and run merchant is leading the way with a class-leading eCommerce solution.


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ou have to keep changing to stay competitive. That’s the secret of survival at one of the longest- established merchants in the UK. Colchester-based Collier & Catchpole has a long history, which stretches back to the 1850s when the Crimean War was raging. there have been several significant shifts in direction. But it is the recent change that the independent merchant made that may prove to be the most significant of them all. At the beginning of the year, the merchant, which has branches in Ipswich, Lawford and Colchester, went live with an eCommonSense website after recognising the increasing importance of digital in the world of commerce.


The company’s managing director, Tim Rowbottom, said that at the beginning of the nine-month project they had thought data management would be the biggest challenge but they quickly realised it was just the tip of the iceberg.


“We thought that the bulk of the work would be the population of the website with data and images. Although a huge task, it soon became clear that the project would have an impact on all areas of our business from accounts to operations,” he said. The launch of the website took place just before the country went into lockdown forcing many businesses to close their doors. “At the beginning of the year when we launched, we were only making a relatively modest number of sales a month online, but during May this had increased more than


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www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net October 2020


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