Nigel's Eco Store

www.nigelsecostore.com

For Hove-based Nigel Berman, doing business is not just about selling anything that will turn a profit. Since the late 1990s when he attended a course on teaching companies to operate in a more environmentally friendly way, he has been a convert to the approach. He launched a new business that both sold eco-products and used an eco-friendly business model: ecommerce. Nigel's Eco Store is the home of the Green Web Awards.

Trading Ecologically Online

Nigel Berman, originally trained as a chartered accountant at KPMG, took to travelling and in Australia became interested in the environment. Returning to England he went into publishing, launching one of the early magazines about mind, body and spirit from his bedroom. He moved on from this to set up a Brighton-focused listings and entertainment magazine that also had an ecological bent. Nigel recalls,

“I was aiming to make my company more environmentally responsible and came across some eco-products. I was inspired by them – how they challenged conventional thinking – and how using them made me feel good.”

He found that many products were hard to source and yet he knew the demand was there from his chats with contacts and friends. So the idea of Nigel’s Eco Store was born. More as a sideline at first, he initially set about creating a basic, low cost online store using a web-based service where he paid a fixed rate per month for a given number of products. This was March 2005. Within three days a national newspaper enquired about his Eco-kettle (that only boils as much water as you need) which was hard to source at the time. Things took off from there and by December 2005 Nigel was spending more time on his e-business than at his publishing house.

“My flat just became full - there were boxes everywhere and I’d be getting up early to pack up orders and walk them to the post office before going into work,”

Nigel says.

The site now turns over about £200,000 and sells almost 200 products from £5 razors with handles made of recycled yogurt pots to the world’s first broadband video phone (so people don’t need to jet off for overseas meetings) at £3,500. It is important that anything he sells is well designed as well as eco-friendly. You can even buy a coffin called an ecopod made of old paper.

“We don’t sell many of these although I do sell more of the acorn urns that takes the ashes after a cremation. They are ornamental as well as practical and very affordable at £45,” Nigel explains.

The fast growth (40% month on month initially) and level of traffic and orders was becoming a problem for his shopping cart service. So Nigel moved to Actinic Business, a boxed ecommerce package that also gave him more security, as the new store (www.nigelsecostore.com) was now held on his own PC not just on a third party server.

By early 2006 when the site moved to Actinic, Eco Store was taking around 300 - 350 orders per month (up from 17 orders in March 2005) with peaks when press coverage appeared. A mention in Metro, for instance, and sales shot up 30% and another in the Observer doubled turnover that month.

A step change came in November 2006 when Nigel got his key pages optimised for the search engine spiders.

“It had far more impact than the hundreds I’d been forking out on Adwords. Immediately traffic went up by 30% and within two months sales had doubled. But I found that it’s really difficult to find the right agency. Most don’t understand account management and over-promise and under-deliver. They just don’t realise the impact of this on a small business on a tight budget.”

Nigel outsourced the SEO process to a local agency. Although he could learn to do it himself, it would have been just one job too many for someone who is already a jack of all trades. It is a feeling he’s got used to, working alone doing site maintenance, accounts, marketing, PR, attending shows, handling queries and returns - “sometimes I lose sight of what’s important,” he admits.

Sensibly however, Nigel has outsourced some important activities to ensure customers get their orders quickly and never have to speak to an answerphone. He carefully selected a local call centre to pass on callers or take messages; and a fulfilment company now holds all his stock, takes deliveries and processes the orders. His flat is a home again and the decision has freed him up to run the business more cost effectively and with less stress. Using a third party for the fulfilment has proved a particular success and cheaper than employing a dedicated person and renting storage. Also, before, he got very behind with getting boxes out. But now he can offer guaranteed next day delivery, and if mistakes are made, the company is responsible.

It hasn’t been all plain sailing for Nigel Berman. These are some of the challenges he’s overcome.

• Working alone and getting overwhelmed. Nigel resolved this by outsourcing key activities to trusted third parties.
• Nigel finds the lack of face-to-face interaction with customers makes it harder to get feedback. This has been largely overcome by attending exhibitions and encouraging customers to call with a 0800 free phone number.
• Returns. Nigel has adopted the mantra of ‘The customer is always right’ - he listens to any complaints, doesn’t argue and ensures he rectifies the problem quickly.
• Costs. “It’s easy to add overheads like a PR agency, and not know what impact it’s having on your bottom line,” Nigel says. He monitors new costs carefully and only outsources where he can see a tangible benefit to the business and his customers.