Mark Wilkinson, Florence Kelly, and Drew Mansur launched TileCloud in 2017 with the aim of transforming the Australian tile market and redefining home renovations as enjoyable passion projects rather than exhausting ordeals. The concept behind the online tile seller has since resonated with customers across Australia, with DIY enthusiasts and professional renovators alike buying their tiles from the brand.
Challenge
In the few short years since its founding, TileCloud’s business expanded rapidly, with the brand surpassing $1.2 million in monthly revenue. Wanting to sustain its swift growth trajectory, TileCloud decided to further optimize its website, which handled both DTC and B2B sales, while building out its B2B business to capture more wholesale customers. The team at TileCloud knew it needed to provide a more seamless customer experience for both its consumer and wholesale markets if it wanted to drive sales through both channels.
One crucial element in the optimization of TileCloud’s online retail presence was the ability to closely monitor the activity on its website with easy access to detailed metrics. These metrics were also critical in helping the business make the right decisions to drive growth. However, gaining such insight was a challenge for the brand.
Solution
After upgrading to Shopify Plus in July 2020, TileCloud gained the ability to launch expansion stores – additional online stores with the same backend as its main store. Drawing upon this capability, TileCloud created a dedicated B2B online store for its wholesale customers. This meant the company could tailor its storefront to appeal specifically to B2B customers, with different prices for different wholesale customers, depending on their partnership with TileCloud.
With Shopify Functions, a feature enabling backend coding, TileCloud was able to customize its checkout process for a more streamlined user experience. One notable outcome was the ability to apply multiple automatic discounts at the checkout, giving both B2B and consumer customers the benefit of a more seamless discount experience.
With Shopify Plus’s ability for merchants to preconfigure website data, Tilecloud was also able to set up a custom view of its website activity reports. This gave the company greater visibility of key metrics, such as the average order value, to better gauge the effectiveness of its online promotions and customer experience – valuable data needed to further optimize its online sales channels.
Results
The customer experience efficiencies gained through Shopify Plus features, such as a more streamlined checkout process, have enabled TileCloud to push up its customer conversion rates and average order value. Moreover, with a dedicated expansion store tailored to the needs of its wholesale customers, TileCloud has been able to attract more wholesale customers and drive sales through personalized pricing for individual buyers, targeted messaging and special wholesale promotions.
At the same time, the detailed metrics provided by Shopify Plus have enabled TileCloud to improve its decision-making processes, leading to data-driven improvements to its online stores, sales campaigns, customer acquisition and retention strategies, and customer experience more generally.
Shopify Plus was like an Excel spreadsheet; we didn’t realize how much it could do until we started exploring its features. And with a combination of clearer access to our numbers and support of our merchant success manager, we have been able to make a series of changes, elevating our online experience for both retail and trade customers.
