Hoppings Softwood Products has seen the future of UK decking sales, and an increasingly sizeable share of them, it believes, will be digital.
Consequently, the company has continued to develop both its www.qualitydecking.co.uk website and its Q-Deck Online Partners sales and marketing support system. Latest improvements have made both the website and merchant Partners’ Online Shops, which link directly to it, more accessible and user-friendly. They also enable Hoppings more effectively to use the overall online set-up to monitor customer behaviour, enquiries and orders. It has also immediately added its just unveiled pre-coloured Q-Shades decking range into its digital sales systems.
Hoppings launched its Online Partnering strategy, which has now netted two TTJ Awards prizes, in 2012. At the heart of the approach is www.qualitydecking.co.uk, the website that drives enquiries to Partner merchants’ satellite websites known as Q-Deck Online Shops. The latter e-commerce enabled facilities are created using partners’ own style and livery. Their customers, in turn, can then use them to tap the full resources of the Hoppings online facility and see the full Q-Deck range and prices, including latest developments and additions, but via their local merchant’s site. They can then place their order via the system direct with the Online Partner.
For the end consumer, this approach provides the benefit of sourcing national, buying local. For the Partner merchant, it spells exponential growth and development of their online offer, with Hoppings effectively doing all the updating of their Q-Deck website-within-a-website.
"And for Hoppings, besides generating sales and building a closer relationship with the customer, the benefits are that we retain total control of brand identity and values online," said group marketing and development director Adam Pulfer.
A relaunch of www.qualitydecking.co.uk is one of the most recent developments. This, said Mr Pulfer, gives it a ‘modern vibrant design with ease of use at the heart of redevelopment’.
"Website developers must be constantly responsive to ways people use them and the major recent trend has been growth in mobile phone access," he said. "So not only was qualitydecking.co.uk upgraded to be more mobile phone friendly, so were all 58 Q-Deck Online Partners’ ecommerce shops."
"Our main focus this spring is tracking enquiries generated by the Q-Deck product websites and establishing how many turn into profitable orders for Partners," said Mr Pulfer.
"To achieve this, our latest initiative is to use our systems for managing specific Google Adwords advertising campaigns for Q-Deck decking. A number of Partners are trialing this potentially exciting new approach for winning orders and the results will be known shortly."
Hoppings’ other key move has been the launch of Q-Shades. This is a response to growing use of colour in garden design. The new range comprises decking and cladding pre-stained in matt colour washes prior to Tanalith preservative treatment, chiming with current consumer trends and boasting superior durability and minimising maintenance.
Besides the core products, grooved and smooth Canterbury Decking and featheredge loglap and shiplap cladding, Q-Shades includes matching multi-purpose deck posts and screening.
The initial colours are Pebble Grey and Autumn Brown, with Black available on application.
The range is produced using Hoppings regular preservative treatment processes, helping, it says, make it ‘very affordable’.
"Combined with the products’ looks and performance, it will enable merchants and contractors to make profitable returns in an increasingly commoditised market," said Mr Pulfer.
Q-Shades has already been included on www.qualitydecking.co.uk, and via that, Online Partner’s ecommerce shops.
"It highlighted the capacity of the system to bring new products on stream overnight," said Mr Pulfer.
"Looking at qualitydecking.co.uk visitor habits in 2015 re-enforced our decision to invest in digital marketing, as engagement with the brand and Partners improved markedly” said Mr Pulfer.
"I feel 2016 will be the year we fully understand the future potential of our digital partnering strategy and the form it takes into 2017 and beyond."
