Site’s set high

Some company websites seem to have little to do with the business they’re supposed to be about. All the facts and figures may be there but the image conveyed seems disconnected from the style and approach of the operation behind it. That was something Thorogood Timber was determined to avoid – but given the changing nature of the business, it was not a simple task.

The 40-year-old hardwood and softwood importer and merchant, based at Ardleigh near Colchester, is proud of its reputation as a friendly, family business. At the same time – as the new warehouse sprouting on its six-acre site demonstrates – it’s growing and moving in new directions.

As marketing director Dale Mayhew explained: “We’re still a relatively small business. We have 25 employees, turnover around £3m and the majority of our business is done in East Anglia. As such, we’ve focused on providing the individual customer service you can’t get from the bigger companies.” In particular, he added, Thorogoods takes on a lot of bespoke processing in its modern mill.

Not run of the mill

Then there are the facets that seem to break Thorogoods out of the conventional family-style merchant mould. First it has a busy hardwood worktop and laminating operation and it also machines hardwood flooring and specially commissioned architectural features. But the break with tradition Mr Mayhew is most excited about is Thorogoods’ rapidly growing business as sole UK supplier of waney-edged cherry from Horizon Wood Products of Pennsylvania.

“It was clear from our very first container that the cherry was of exceptional quality. It’s cut through and through from high quality logs, which means wider boards and because we get the entire log, the colour consistency is excellent and the sap content is reduced.”

The cherry, he added, has taken Thorogoods beyond its established East Anglian market and is now selling nationwide.

So the brief to Thorogoods’ website designers was demanding. The site had to reflect the dynamism of the business and appeal to the wider market place for its new products and services, while not frightening off traditional customers.

“We needed something that would be taken seriously by bigger customers, but would also interest the workshop man,” said Mr Mayhew. “The site had to be polished and professional, without being too slick.”

Thorogoods made the launch of the new site part of a complete overhaul of its corporate image and took on Ipswich marketing company Square Mackerel to mastermind the process. But it wasn’t about to let the latter just get on with it. Thorogoods had run its old site for nine years – “that probably makes us a timber industry website pioneer!” – and realised the importance of keeping hands on control.

“We made lots of amendments as we were going along – it’s the only way to develop a site, otherwise you end up with something you’re not comfortable with.”

The look of the website linked with Thorogoods’ new marketing material, using black and white shots of a pair of hands as a design theme.

“This ties in with our slogan ‘we know timber like the backs of our hands’,” said Mr Mayhew. “The grain of the skin also mirrors the grain of timber and the pictures convey our commitment to service.”

The site (www.thorogood.co.uk) which went live last summer, was nine months in gestation and cost a “five-figure sum” but Mr Mayhew believes it was time and money well spent. “We might have got something standard cheaper, but our priority was to get precisely what we wanted,” he said. “It’s also easy to manage. Square Mackerel do a lot of the updating, but I add the news myself and I’m no computer technician.”

The site has a company profile section, contact page, plus areas on products, timber species, Thorogoods news, machining and, of course, the American cherry. The product, species and machining pages break down into further sections on individual items with colour illustrations, many of which fade in and out or rotate thanks to the use of ‘Flash’ software. There are also online price estimators for oak beams and worktops.

Online brochure

It may come with certain products eventually, but one thing you can’t do with the Thorogoods site is buy online. “That was not our objective. We wanted the site to act as an online brochure and an additional service to customers – to be able to say to customers, ‘rather than boring you for an hour about this or that timber, take a look at our site’.”

And, he maintained, most customers do look. “Three years ago it might have been different, but the trade is far more comfortable with the internet now.”

But that’s not to say Thorogoods’ website experience has all been plain sailing. The directors did have a light-hearted disagreement over the electronic ‘drumbeats’ that sound when you click the section buttons.

“There was a feeling this was too zappy. But eventually we went for it. It makes the site feel more advanced and makes it easier for the novice to navigate – so it helps fulfil two of our main website objectives.”

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