Flo Cornea from Influent UK

The Company

Flo Cornea initially started Influent UK as a side-project, he had recently graduated with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering and was on the search for a new challenge, and a natural affinity for problem-solving drew him toward web development.

After teaming up with his brother, a successful graphic designer and illustrator, they aspired to build an ecommerce business where they could sell artwork. However, this was all happening in Romania in 2006 and ecommerce wasn’t anywhere near as mainstream as it was here in the UK, so it wasn’t until Flo and his wife relocated to the UK that Influent really started to take off.

The Challenge

As Flo built his business by supplementing his already successful website with eBay and Amazon listings he quickly realised that although sales were increasing month on month, he was spending more and more of his weekends and evenings managing his growing business.

Copying and pasting customer details for shipping whilst surrounded by stacks of papers and jiffy bags wasn’t what that the family team had envisioned when they started.

Flo’s initial plan was to find a software solution that could handle a number of core businesses processes; inventory, shipping, store listings and more. In theory, everything under one roof sounded like the right way to go for his business, but, it was soon clear that this approach was leaving the essential processes short-changed.

“Mistakes were still being made and I needed to find something that got the most essential job, getting orders to customers done properly. That’s when I started to look for something else.”

The Solution

After struggling along with a not-quite-right solution for a year, Flo came across Zenstores in the Shopify App store and after reading a series of positive reviews he decided it was worth giving the platform a try.

And it only took a matter of hours before he realised that Zenstores was the solution he was looking for. Instant setup, a direct line to a friendly customer support team, and an easy to use interface were all instant wins, though, as Flo explains it was the sheer simplicity of Zenstores that was the biggest gamechanger:

“Zenstores just gets the job done. It has everything you need to save time and get orders to customers faster. It’s just so much easier than anything else out there.”

Soon he was able to come into work select the orders that needed to be shipped, print the labels, and notify his customers all within a couple of minutes - job done.

This is what Flo describes as the ‘power of Zenstores’, reducing complicated, time-consuming processes into incredibly simple ones.

The Outcome

The benefits of Zenstores have been remarkable for Influent UK. Not only does the company now have a standardised future-proof shipping process that has resulted in countless positive customer reviews, but it’s also enabled Flo to set aside more of the time he was previously spending dispatching orders with his family.

The future is bright for Influent and Flo has big plans, seeking to build the business into a network for up and coming artists to showcase their work whilst providing his existing customer base with affordable artwork that can’t be found anywhere else.

We’re looking forward to hearing more from the Influent UK team in the future!

“Zenstores has freed up my time and given me the space to focus on growing my business, it’s definitely a win-win for us!”