Welsh wholesaler R&I Jones now drives most of its business through online – Director Aled Roberts explains how
Hey Aled, what does R&I Jones sell?
We are a family run confectionery distribution business.
What were you doing before adopting b2b.store?
Our move to b2b.store wasn’t something we thought we would do. Having seen businesses such as Booker and other bigger wholesale businesses move online, we just didn’t consider it as something we would see an awful lot of benefit from. At the time, our sole focus was getting products in and products out of the door. So we were working in the traditional way.
Can you tell us about your move to b2b.store and how it’s helped your business?
We started selling our products with our buying group Sugro. Demand for online purchasing wasn’t nearly as high as it is now, but it was strong and growing. We got the opportunity to offer our wholesale customers an actual platform where they could order online through b2b.store. Despite us knowing it would take time to both develop and gain traction, we knew it was the right thing to do. As anticipated, early adoption was fairly slow but as soon as people got the hang of it, it worked. After all, we were fundamentally changing the way customers submitted their orders.
Did you have to work hard to get adoption from customers?
Yes, we did. After moving online to b2b.store, the biggest challenge for us was getting customers to register and start purchasing goods through the online portal. We were able to get past this by registering customers ourselves, rather than relying on them to do so because let’s face it… they don’t.
What do the customers love?
There are so many great features with b2b.store. Our customers love that they can add products to their 'favourites list' and when they need to, they can return to it for their order the following week. We’ve noticed they also have a quick search for any promotions we have on before putting their orders through. It’s a bit like queuing at the till and impulse buying the stuff around you, except it’s online.
How easy is b2b.store to use?
Pretty easy. Once all of our products are online, there isn’t really much maintenance to do. We consistently monitor our price changes and add new products when we need to, but other than that, it’s very straightforward. The only additional thing we do is launch promotions on the storefront, we tend to update our banners quite frequently so the store remains fresh. Again, it’s so easy to do and not time-consuming at all.
R&I Jones's eCommerce success in numbers
- 80% of R&I Jones's is now generated online
- 212% increase in online orders in the past 12 months
- 282% increase in active users using b2b.store in the past 12 months
