In our new white paper, Enabling the multi-verse of commerce, we discuss how retailers are adapting and re-platforming to adopt new routes to market – expanding products or brands to drive market share or launching a direct-to-consumer business after years of operating B2B. One such retailers is Topps Tiles, already a market leader but with ambition to capture even more market share.
Topps Tiles’s growth plans are focused on the ambition of accounting for £1 in every £5 spent on tiles or tiling accessories in the UK. It already accounts for 19%. To do this, much of the focus of the strategy is based on taking market share from other tile specialist competitors, according to Sian Garvey, director of marketing at Topps Tiles. For this a stable platform is key.
Brand extension is an important part of the group’s growth strategy, they are focused on developing brands which are portable across their group of companies and will be pushing harder into brands over the coming months and years to ensure they maintain and grow their competitor differentials.
As well as the expansion of brands within the existing product range Topps Tiles is also expanding into complementary areas. They will continue to push into their main specialism of tiles/wall and floor coverings, but we have launched new product lines such as shower panels and we will continue to investigate any new opportunities that grow their market share.
Topps Tiles is also focusing on channel expansion. To push harder into our market share goals they are keen to take their products to new audiences, have already launched on the Very marketplace, and will be investigating similar channels over the coming months.
Topps Tiles have two different websites for two different customer groups – homeowners and traders. These are on the same platform and use the same fundamental architecture but have different journeys and experiences
Topps Tiles launched new websites in October 2019, having made the decision to re-platform to Adobe Commerce around 18 months before. Their previous website was around 12 years old by that time and actually started life as an online brochure before becoming transactional. During more than a decade, they had bolted on so many features and so much functionality over the years the website was no longer fit for purpose.
It was the best fit for a retailer of our size with the amount of traffic we drive and the number of transactions we generate and it is used by more successful large retailers globally than any other platform. That assurance was very attractive to us.
Adobe Commerce is an incredibly agile platform. Because of its size, it’s easy to integrate other services and suppliers (for example, on-site search, digital wallets etc.) which means we feel protected for the future.
Success is measured in several ways. We monitor all the usual KPIs – traffic, conversion, orders. We also have a specific interest in sample orders as these are future sales to the business. We also measure some softer touchpoints like how many customers have visited our visualiser.
Inspiration is hugely important to us and we know that the more we inspire our homeowners, the more this footfall ends up in store.
– Sian Garvey, director of marketing, Topps Tiles
This article contains extracts from our Enabling the multi-verse of commerce document, you can read the full story along with additional case studies here.
