The Situation
Parkers of Bolton initially started selling on eBay by manually creating listings and auctioning these products on the marketplace. This was a labour-intensive process for the team, but it was manageable as numbers were small. As the company experienced significant growth and demand from eBay customers, however, the process became harder to manage.
“In the past, we had challenges whereby if we had notified eBay we had ten products, we’d need to ring-fence that stock to ensure we could fulfil any potential orders,” explained Paul Walsh, e-commerce manager at Parkers of Bolton. “Manual inventory management began to cause a strain on our resources, so we needed a solution that would scale and increase sales without requiring more dedicated internal resources.”
Parkers of Bolton recognised the revenue opportunities offered by online marketplaces but encountered difficulties selling on Amazon. “In our experience, a lot of marketplaces just didn’t function as smoothly as eBay, limiting the channels we could sell across and therefore our sales opportunities,” said Walsh.
The Solution
Parkers of Bolton chose to implement Rithum Marketplaces, an effective tool for retailers with a multichannel sales strategy. Marketplaces delivers product data for each marketplace, helping products stand out from competitors’ and automates the management of online selling.
Additionally, for the past six months, Rithum has been managing Parkers of Bolton’s Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs), advertising on stock-driven levels. In other words, if a product is out of stock, it’s not advertised on Google, saving the company’s marketing budget.
“Rithum Marketplaces has changed the way we manage our online business. Through our use of the platform, we have improved our eBay sales, expanded to Amazon and have full control of our stock from one central hub.” said Walsh, “We now have excellent visibility into our performance and because all of our orders are grouped in one place, we are able to quickly identify our stock levels and top-performing products.”
“The unallocated listings allow us to post ten items to eBay but not have to ring-fence that stock. If we end up selling these products on another channel, it instantly updates,” Walsh said. “It provides flexibility from one platform, making it easy to use so we can focus our attention on other aspects of the business, such as customer service.”
The Results
Since implementation, Parkers of Bolton has increased sales on eBay and Amazon by 86%. The company has seen the biggest sales through Amazon, followed by eBay. Through the success experienced since implementing Rithum Marketplaces, Parkers of Bolton is now looking to expand into other marketplaces that Rithum supports.
“With Rithum constantly increasing the number of marketplaces they support as well as the improved complexity of their reporting system, we are now looking to expand into selling through other marketplaces,” said Walsh. “Transitioning from an old system to a new one can seem overwhelming, but Rithum supported us through the process. The move is easier than we had originally thought, and we couldn’t do what we do now without Rithum.”
