The Company
Dan Rawson has years of ecommerce experience, but started his current business, Spot On Nuts and Bolts, about three years ago. He discovered an untapped market for nuts and bolts, and decided to pursue it - choosing to set up an online business due to the high cost of renting a shop premises with low footfall.
The Challenge
Dan started selling on eBay as it was the quickest and easiest way to get the business up and running. He then expanded on to Amazon, because like eBay, he understood that a lot of the work’s done for you - they’re trusted sites with an established base of traffic, and processes such as payments and reviews are already in place.
However, his long-term plan was to build up his own websites’ sales. He wants to create an independent sales presence, become a resource for shoppers, as well as saving on eBay and Amazon fees.
As his business started to grow, core business processes started to hold back his increasing growth rate. Just getting orders out of the door was becoming a long-winded, time-consuming process.
It got to the point where Dan was spending several hours each day sorting orders and printing labels - it was consuming all of his time. As a result the time and effort he could dedicate to building and marketing his own website was becoming increasingly limited.
The Solution
With his business’s growth suffering, Dan started to look for third-software that could help - that’s when he came across Zenstores. Able to view and manage his orders in one place, he no longer wastes time switching between different platforms; producing shipping labels and dispatching orders takes nothing more than a few clicks.
Zenstores allows him to keep track of his orders, and the search function means he can quickly locate orders when dealing with customer enquiries. He now uses it more than eBay - if there’s a problem with a delivery, he’ll log into Zenstores to find out when and how it was sent.
Discovering Zenstores has been a game-changer for Dan, he’s been able to get back to focusing on his ambition of generating a higher proportion of his sales through his website.
The Result
“Zenstores saved us time and helped us to move over to Royal Mail 2D barcode labels”
With such niche products, Dan’s customers often need a very specific item. Zenstores has freed up his time for him to improve his customer service, responding to enquiries and helping shoppers find the right item - resulting in happier customer and less returns.
He’s also using the extra time to focus on his WooCommerce site. Using his in depth technical knowledge, he’s finally able to follow through on his plans to build a blog that will become the go-to resource for shoppers and generate traffic to his site.
Dan’s now able to spend more of his time and attention on the big picture, and today with more and more of his sales coming through his website he’s well on his way to achieving what he had set out to do from the start.
