Paul Michael Broomhead talks us through how taking on b2b.store's eCommerce platform has helped the Sugro member grow its online presence
Hey Paul, what does The Soft Drink Company sell?
We sell wholesale food, soft drinks, snacks and other groceries to places like convenience stores, post offices and leisure centres.
What were you doing before adopting b2b.store?
Before b2b.store, we used the traditional route and took all of our orders through telesales. We then decided to move to eCommerce in 2018, where we had an online-ordering system, but it wasn’t what we needed it to be and the system itself was quite poor. In April 2020, we decided to choose a more reliable technology partner and released our online store and app through b2b.store.
Can you tell us about your move to b2b.store and how it’s helped your business?
We now operate both online and through an app where previously, we relied on telesales to take orders from customers for various items. With b2b.store, we’ve removed the need for a person to physically take an order and we've put the control back into the hands of the customer. Our competitors still have their physical stores where customers can walk around and purchase goods, we’ve moved all of that online.
It goes without saying that our average order size is increasing. Partly due to the fact that our product range is now more widely available, people are seeing stock they didn’t know we had. b2b.store has also allowed us to take orders 24/7, we used to be restricted to an 8:30am to 4:30pm ordering window.
We’ve also found that once we got to grips with the software and the app, we could do so many things with it. A couple of the standout things that appealed to me were being able to feature products on the homepage and sending out push notifications when we had new product launches or promotions. It’s been a huge help getting the message out to customers in an easy hassle free way.
Did you have to work hard to get adoption from customers?
No, not really. We didn’t do a big launch or anything, it was a soft launch. We’ve never really had to work hard for our customers to adopt online ordering, we also didn’t have to run things like ‘cashback on your first online order’, it just felt like a natural process because of all the benefits to them too. It would now take them half the time to place an order as it wasn’t needing to be done over the telephone.
Any final comments?
The previous platform didn’t take off in the same way that the b2b.store app has – it’s 100% a better platform. The old platform would have customers ordering once and never again but with b2b.store, the experience was smooth and it worked well for the customer and for us. We’ve seen repeat orders come in and it’s a testament to the work b2b.store have done creating a platform that works.
The Soft Drinks Company's eCommerce in numbers
- 50% increase in online orders since adopting b2b.store
- The ordering system is now 24/7 as opposed to 8am-4pm
- 100% customer satisfaction since making the move online
