Online ordering is increasingly viewed as a necessity by trade customers, meaning that full ecommerce functionality is becoming a vital part of a merchant’s service offering. PBM looks into the rise of online trading, considering the example of the partnership between software specialist ECI and its customer Branch Bros.
According to the latest Digital Economy Survey from the Office for National Statistics, total website sales made by businesses in the UK non-financial sector reached £459.2 billion in 2021 — an increase of £102.8 billion (28.8%) compared with 2019. Furthermore, the report noted that UK website sales “were dominated by businesses with 1,000 or more employees,” with sales of £272.8 billion in 2021 and accounting for 59.4% of total UK website sales.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “industry sector making the highest proportion of website sales in 2021 was retail,” with 34.5% of businesses made website sales. Clearly, the ‘pandemic effect’ cannot be overstated in these figures, and it will be fascinating to see how the growth trajectory has continued in the next release of the survey (which the ONS anticipates will be presented before the end of this year, covering “data for the 2023 reference period”).
Yet while the rise of ecommerce in general has long since been considered beyond doubt, the experiences of Covid must surely have finally shattered the myth that trade customers remained reliably analogue in their purchasing habits. Already experienced online buyers in their spare time, when branches were forced to close or access became increasingly complex, the trade clearly demonstrated how consumer trends accelerate business changes.
Merchants with full ecommerce functionality cited enormous increases in website traffic and transactions. Whilst other firms adapted, it was increasingly clear — in the words of ECI’s 2023 whitepaper entitled ‘Why does my merchant business need to be online?’ — that “it’s no longer
enough for timber and builders’ merchants, to sell only through in-store and over-the-phone orders.”
“While the rise of ecommerce in general has long since been considered beyond doubt, the experiences of Covid perhaps finally shattered the myth that trade customers remained reliably analogue in their purchasing habits.”
Without a robust web presence, the whitepaper contended, merchants “could lose those customers and potential sales to competitors who offer online ordering.” In response, the company launched Spruce eCommerce last year, describing it as “an innovative ecommerce solution purpose-built for the unique needs of builders’ merchants and related businesses.”
Integrating with its proven Spruce ERP software, the platform was created to combine professional website design with an innovative customer portal to simplify online shopping and ensure “frictionless purchasing” — a factor it bills as “crucial in creating customer loyalty” whilst providing them with “the convenience they’ve come to expect from online purchasing on desktop, mobile, or tablet.”
Said to be easy to use for merchants and their customers, the platform includes a Spruce-proprietary Product Information Management (PIM) system and capabilities for “seamlessly adding” products to the ecommerce storefront, alongside the content customers need to make informed buying decisions.
In addition, it offers a broad range of features such as branch-driven inventory counts and pricing, split shopping carts based on pickup or delivery, order pickup time slots and capacity, customer quote builder and a branch finder facility. Furthermore, it also enables tools such as abandoned carts, content pages, blog tool, drag and drop layouts, rewards and loyalty programmes, badges, banners, customer segmentation, reports and Google Analytics.
Branch Bros adoption
Establishing its first depot in The Deepings near Peterborough in 1967 and still owned and managed by its founding family, Branch Bros has expanded over the years to open a second, much larger location in Bourne in 1997. More recently, the business took on a third outlet in Holbeach which started trading in the summer of 2017 to coincide with its 50th anniversary.
Reflecting on the company’s more recent journey to develop its ecommerce capabilities, in a video produced in partnership with ECI (see below), Managing Director Ashley Branch explained how its adoption of Spruce eCommerce has allowed it to “fill the gap in business revenue resulting from a shift in traditional buying habits.”
Ashley said: “The main reason for looking for an ecommerce solution was changing customer shopping habits, especially with younger customers wanting to order online. Customers were telling us that they were surprised we didn’t have an online ordering facility, and Covid certainly accelerated this trend.
“That was a very difficult period of trading and as a company, we carried on (but) we didn’t have an online solution at the time — and we certainly would have benefited by having one, because more of our competitors were already doing that. We needed a better solution.”
The subsequent addition of online trading has enabled Branch Bros to more than fill that gap, as Ashley explained: “Since the launch of Spruce eCommerce, our customers’ experience has improved because they now have that facility to order online — it extends our business outside of our normal opening hours, so we effectively have a 24/7 offering.”
He added: “We couldn’t be without it now. We need a trusted supplier like ECI to work with because the online solution is so important to us as a business, both now and in the future and I can only see that becoming more so as we go forward.
“We know it’s a product that is going to be invested in and developed, which is very important to us because we see this as a long-term partnership with ECI.”
Click here for more information on Spruce eCommerce from ECI.
