Toolden scales from local seller to global retailer with BigCommerce

SOLUTION

Connecting to integrations to drive the business.

The company realised it needed to move to a cloud-native SaaS platform that would handle security and maintenance on its behalf. A list of requirements was drawn up and in a shoot-out with Shopify, BigCommerce was the clear winner, based on platform functionality and price.

“BigCommerce has allowed us to grow from a small, local operation to serving a global audience. The native functionality of the platform and having a seamless integration to our ERP is a game changer for us,” said Grovu. “The most important aspect of BigCommerce’s platform is its APIs because it allows us to link to most of the applications the company uses, including Google Shopping by Sales and Order for product feed management, Klaviyo for email marketing, and Trustpilot for customer reviews.”

Targeting business buyers.

Toolden’s heritage was in trade and public authority sales before it moved into the B2C market. This meant it is now seeking sales in two very different markets, and so needs separate sites to appeal to both DIY enthusiasts and business users. This prompted the company to use the BigCommerce B2B Edition for its long list of business-specific features. Eddie Grovu reveals the move has been highly successful.

“It's easy for me and my colleagues to go in the back-end and set up profiles for individual companies,” he says. “We’ve got individual pricing for each account and we’ve also done some custom work to offer credit, with individual limits, for each customer. It has made our life easier because B2B customers don't have to phone sales reps to place orders. It’s reduced a lot of labour time in the office.”

Fuelling growth, at pace.

Toolden’s ambitious growth plans has seen it double the number of products it sell online from 30,000 to 60,000 in just the past four years. This has been a combination of reaching out to new customers, to embrace home uses as well as professionals, and widening its range. To add so many products under another platform would be very time-consuming but Eddie Grovu reveals BigCommerce has made it easy for non-developers to update the site at speed.

“I still talk to people who are on platforms where they have to use developers to add new pages, which is obviously very costly and time-consuming,” he says. “I can go in with BigCommerce and list 10,000 products within half an hour. It’s a user-friendly, self-service platform where you're capable of not only just launching a product and the margin, but also setting up the back-end operation and administration of the website.”