Fastfix Puts Hands on Ecommerce Tools to Build its Business

Adapting to the Market

Fastfix is no stranger to tool-using professionals and do-it-yourselfers in the United Kingdom. This 30-year-old company has seen a lot of change over the years and has successfully adapted to it. 

While it once did business from a warehouse’s trade counter, Fastfix is now predominantly an online business that delivers genuine Makita power tools and accessories throughout the UK.

Doing business solely online meant Fastfix needed a proven ecommerce platform that was open and flexible enough to allow the company to continue to sell, track and deliver orders in a manner it and its customers expected.

The End of One Thing is the Beginning of Another

As told to BigCommerce by Lee Hackett, Fastfix, Ecommerce & Marketing Manager.

We got the push to move to a new platform when Magento announced the end of life for Magento 1 support. That triggered us to take a closer look at our platform and we could no longer avoid the obvious.

We suffered some growing pains and knew our processes needed to improve. Our back office processes were quite antiquated. It was very clunky and there was a lot of double keying because the systems weren't talking to each other.

One of the primary things we wanted was a system that could set a foundation for where we wanted to go and to further use technology to help modernize us and make us quicker.

Vetting for the Right Solution

As told to BigCommerce by Lee Hackett, Fastfix, Ecommerce & Marketing Manager.

To be honest, we pretty much looked at the whole market. Magento 2 was obviously a possibility because we were already on Magento 1. We also looked at WooCommerce and, in particular, Shopify heavily.

The cost was a major factor for us not selecting Magento 2. Also, we found Magento 2 to be a very locked down platform. We wanted to have a more open, hands-on approach where we could actually work with the software ourselves and add to the platform. The way Magento is set up you have to get a developer to do everything for you, which gets expensive. And with Magento it's an upfront cost. You have to outlay all of the money before you even get something to start performing and returning on your investment. They've got you locked down and anything you want to do just costs a lot of money.

However, we felt BigCommerce, as a package, had a lot more included as standard. Whereas with Shopify, it looked great on the surface, but there's a lot of extras you have to pay for — a lot of ongoing monthly apps. We were trying to get away from monthly app subscriptions. It was absolutely necessary to have one set cost where we knew what we would be paying each month and BigCommerce offered it. It’s a perfect model. We pay each month and are getting great returns each month. These are just a few things that led us to select BigCommerce.

We Chose a Winner

As told to BigCommerce by Lee Hackett, Fastfix, Ecommerce & Marketing Manager.

Since launching on BigCommerce in May 2020, the platform has given us a more modern approach for doing business online. It has given us the feeling that we're back in control of our own site, rather than being dictated to by developers with exorbitant costs. Overall, it felt like a new lease of life. Our previous software felt like a bit of a prison sentence.

I’ll say it again. Our previous platform was very expensive to use and it was constantly fraught with problems. We've only been on BigCommerce a couple of months now and the sentiment within the company is like, “Why didn’t we do this earlier?”

In July, we set a company record four times with regards to the number of orders we've had on any given day. That was a long-standing record that we had for a couple of years. To beat it four times in one month is a very positive thing.

Icing on the Cake: Proven Third-Party Solutions

As told to BigCommerce by Lee Hackett, Fastfix, Ecommerce & Marketing Manager.

One of the biggest things that has helped us is the ability to now integrate with Tradebox and have all orders go into Sage accounts automatically. This has given us a few hours back each day as well as reduced errors since the process was previously done manually.

In addition to Tradebox, we’re also using Print Out Designer, which handles our emails, stationary and the automated printing process that we have; Shiptheory for our integration with DPD, our courier service, in regards to printing out labels for parcels; and Rewind for our backups and security.

Then there’s our work with the design agency, Frooition. They were the glue that brought all the bits together. They answered all the questions. They provided all the tech and the custom work we needed to complete our project. Their knowledge, their patience with us and their illustration for how they could customize BigCommerce to do what we wanted it to do was top notch.

They went the extra mile so many times solving issues and sometimes coming back with better solutions. I felt like I was talking to a really good friend for a lot of it, which is the way I like to work. I really appreciated their approachability and willingness to always hop on the phone to answer questions and work through things.

Whatever it takes, they will do. For instance, one of the features we needed to do on BigCommerce wasn’t quite standard on the platform. BigCommerce came up with an idea that would work and Frooition did the implementation to make it happen. Working together we got the solution we wanted.

Refining for the Future

As told to BigCommerce by Lee Hackett, Fastfix, Ecommerce & Marketing Manager.

From a personal/emotional point of view, we had a dream and a vision for our website. We've had it for about five years, but we couldn't achieve it with Magento. However, working with BigCommerce and Frooition we've managed to achieve our exact dream. We got everything we wanted all in a very short period of time. Our first Magento project took nearly two years to go live. With BigCommerce, we went live in five months.

Although COVID slowed things down a bit, the overall performance of the company is up. We’re spending 85% less in Google advertising. A part of this cannot be attributed to BigCommerce, however it is all part of a more successful recipe.

Going forward, the biggest improvements we can make now are in the back office. Over the next 12 months Fastfix is just going to lean into our new online store, sort of letting it sit back in its chair for a little bit as we work to modernize back office processes. It’s something we can do now that we have such a robust and versatile platform.