ECCO’s Hilary Fletcher on how to grow and sell a Bricks and Clicks business (episode 005)
How to grow your eCommerce Business, join us as Hilary Fletcher from ECCO shares her key tips.
Hilary Fletcher (until VERY recently) was Co-Owner of ECCO Shoes Oxford.
ECCO Oxford has been a Bricks and Clicks eCommerce business selling the ECCO shoes range since 2002. Originally selling from one store in Oxford, and online via their own website, having dabbled in Amazon and eBay.
Hilary and her business partner and husband, Harry, have recently sold ECCO Oxford to the overall ECCO partner company, and are currently consulting to take the eCommerce side of ECCO from a single store to a true omni channel business with 42 stores nationwide.
Click to tweet: Hear how Hilary Fletcher sold her eCommerce business on @eComMasterPlan Podcast today
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About the business
- eCommerce Business Structure – Boutqiue Bricks and Clicks, in transition to Big Bricks and Clicks
- Product Range Scale – Niche
- On a bespoke platform
- 15 people in the business (equivalent 12 FTE)
- Turnover towards £1.5m, 65% eCommerce
- Based in the UK, sell globally
- Key widgets in the website:
Most Awesome Thing Right Now
Having sold and moved into the consultant space, it’s taking the opportunity to move the business to be one eCommerce site serving the whole of the UK, and integrating in all 42 stores.
On the Radar for the Coming Months
Widgets for the website. Considering searchendising (Attraqt or SLI Systems) and reviews (Trust Pilot or Feefo).
Migrating the back end systems to Microsoft Dynamics AX (“Microsoft Dax”)
Survive the next few months of transition. The shop is now under the retail ops manager, the eCommerce business now has an eCommerce Business Manager consulting with Hilary to work out the quick wins and assist the running of it. Nurturing the team and looking after them during the transisition period is also crucial.
Tips for Preparing to Sell your eCommerce Business
- Don’t be shocked by the size of the lawyers fees!
- The average sale takes 13 months so it’s a slow process
- Hire an expert to prepare the Information Memorandum (this is the document explaining the business that the buyer will want to see)
- Pitch what the buyer will be interested in, not why you want to sell it
eCommerce Book Top Tip
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- Congruency and Consistency over everything you do will increase the performance of all your traffic generation methods.
Tool Top Tip
- Hootsuite for social media
- TeamworkPM for project management
- Evernote for team training notes
Start Up Top Tip
- Clearly define your customer
- If you’re selling a product – trial it on Amazon or eBay first to see if anyone wants it
If your business didn’t exist, which eCommerce Business Would you like to be Running?
- The criteria would have to be a product that Amazon can’t compete on, that’s not high fashion (the AOVs are too high), and non-perishable product.
- The best fit would be the Buckingham Palace online gift shop!