Harts of Stur is keeping it in the family
Graham Hart is at the helm of family-run Harts of Stur, a business which has been trading for over 60 years. Before that, his great grandfather ran the blacksmith business manufacturing steel parts for agriculture.
For a business that is so steeped in history, Harts of Stur isn’t afraid of looking forward. The ecommerce side of the business is now accountable for 65% of all sales and have helped the business to reach an annual turnover of £6m.
A firm believer that successful businesses must have a mixture of “bricks and clicks”, I caught up with Hart to find out more about how he has brought his historical family business into the age of eCommerce.
So Graham, give me a little background into your business.
“Well when my father came into the business it was manufacturing steel bits for agricultural businesses like feeders and gates but it soon became apparent that people required more to go with these. The business eventually morphed into a general countryside department store.
“We started doing mail order cookware in around 1990 and we’ve had a website since around 1995, although it was non transactional for a long time. The online business grew from there and in 2002 we started using what is now known as SellerDeck to offer a complete service online. We have 7,500 products available through our website and now the majority of our sales are online.”
How important do you think your physical store is now since online sales are rapidly growing?
“One would not survive without the other. We still serve a great deal of local people who like to come into the store but without the website we wouldn’t be able to offer the kind of deals we have in-store.
“We have seen people travel three or four hours to come to our store because they have seen us online. But the flip side of that is we have people deciding to trust our online store because we have a physical store.
What advice would you give someone who was thinking of getting into ecommerce?
“Don’t just try and compete on price. We are always very competitive but price isn’t everything. I have seen a lot of online retailers do that in the past couple of years, especially because of the recession. They try to beat you £1 here and a penny there but they don’t last. You can’t beat people like Amazon on price you have to offer more.
“There needs to be a high level of customer service. This is one of our priorities both on and offline. Just because someone isn’t standing in front of you doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same level of service.
How do you intend to keep the ecommerce side of the business growing?
“We are also working on adding extra content to our site at the moment. It is something we feel will really boost the consumer experience. We have a wealth of specialist knowledge here, my family have been working in the business all of their lives and that expertise is invaluable.
“We are aiming to create training videos to go on the site to give extra tuition to those who buy our products as many of them have to be used in a certain way – our knife sharpening tools for example.
“We regularly look at the functionality on the site and see how it can be improved. We are also currently building our mobile site so we can take advantage of the increase in mCommerce sales. We hope to launch in February!”
Have you come across any stumbling blocks along the way?
“We have had to adapt to changes in rules and regulations such as PCI compliance but these things benefit the business in the long run by automating every day tasks. At first we outsourced the site and it was using SellerDeck when we brought it in-house we found it really easy to manage.
“There is always the fear of credit card fraud but advances in payment technology have helped to make it harder for people to try and get away with it. We have found that while one time, fraudsters used to concentrate on the high value electrical goods, they have realised that those transactions are checked thoroughly and now go for smaller goods.”
Do you advertise online at all?
“Yes, we find PPC campaigns to be very effective and we also do a lot of advertising in the local press and magazines that are relevant to our trade. These have definitely had a good effect on our sales.At Christmas we reached double digit growth both online and in-store.
That’s fantastic. Any other advice you would give someone setting up online?
“I would make sure you get plenty of quotes for building your site before settling with a company. We have always used SellerDeck and it has been fantastic. Don’t be scared and have a go – there is no right answer, if there was – there would only be one company online!”
For more on this topic, visit www.hartsofstur.com
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