"If you're going to do something, do it, and do it right" Roisin from F.R. Cathcart Ltd

April 12, 2016 - PRLog -- Roisin from F.R. Cathcart Ltd is a special person I helped way back set up their now booming eCommerce website, and have massively progressed since then and I hope will continue to do so! The F.R. Cathcart Ltd business started 40 years ago as a brick and mortar store in Northern Ireland and they supply everything from home and garden to hardware and building supplies. The store mainly sold building supplies until the credit crunch occurred, so as a family business they decided to diversify what they offered and delved into more a of a lifestyle store.

Hi everyone, Roisin from F.R. Cathcart Ltd shares her incredible journey on SellingOnlineToday!

Listen online: http://www.sellingonlinetoday.com/podcast-interview/fr-cathcart-ltd/

Listen on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/sellingonlinetodays-podcast/id980276311

Some thoughts from the interview
"We started to look at our typical customer and our typical customer ended up being a lot like me. I have 2 young children, I work full time and my husband works full time and we don't have a lot of time to go shop. We made this realisation and the topic of website of things had come up."

"A long time ago my husband had a brochure site made and it worked at the time."

"As time went on we identified the need for an online shop presence and looking at me as a typical customer I don't have time to go shop for lifestyle stuff."

"We got an eCommerce site built that didn't work particularly well and then we got involved with yourself and we are here now."

"We have a big bricks and mortar business and we find that our customers are so much more educated than they were even 5 years ago when I came into the business. If somebody wants to come buy a barbecue for example they know exactly what the features are and what they want, they know that the model that we have on the floor is the biggest in the range and they want the smallest in the range. The internet is great for that; it generates sales in the shop as well."

"If I do want something and I know someone in the town has it, what I will so is I will go research it. Typical family thing, Richard and I both have iPads we sit on opposite ends of the sofa iPad each in hand, he's looking up whatever he is looking at and I am looking shoes, handbags etc, so that I have seen the full range and I know that Joe Blogs up the town does it. I will walk in the next day or I will phone them and say I have seen this on your website and I want it so I only have to call into a shop for a few minutes to pick up the item and pay for it."

"The one that works best for us is eBay, which surprised us we didn't anticipate that. Amazon is fantastic if you have the right product at the right price and you hit the illusive buy it now box and you can do big, big volume on Amazon that way."

"With the likes of eBay and Amazon it is a ready-made platform which has a huge amount of people going to it. We didn't at the start of eCommerce journey before even you got involved we had a very mediocre eCommerce site but we didn't have anything on any other platforms. As soon as we put something on to the platforms we instantly saw sales from it."

"The platforms are brilliant in that respect, if you can sell something at the right price there is no reason you can't sell on Amazon or eBay."

"We were cancelling orders and getting into trouble with Amazon and I think at one stage we got kicked off Amazon because we weren't fulfilling."

"What is great about Amazon and bay is that they are there for the customer and they are such a secure way of buying things, it is all about customer care with them."

"We realised very quickly, with your help, that we need to integrate our online offering with our bricks and mortar offering."

"Now we have an all singing all dancing system that means if something sells of the shop the stock level online will be adjusted so that the instances of us selling out of things is now not a problem."

"It's all about bulk online, it's all about getting out as many products to as many people as possible."

"It's a completely different business model."

"You need to have the conversation with yourself whether you are going to concentrate on the marketplaces or whether you need your own website or whether you need all together."

"People think it is simple; if you hit it right yes, it can be very rewarding but it is labour intensive."

"I think some people fall into the pitfalls or the hidden costs of selling on eBay or Amazon, it's your PayPal fee, your Amazon fee, your eBay fee those are things we have a spreadsheet that we go off and it's a very easy design but we start with the selling price."

"As time goes on, as your Google ranking improves those cost reduce over time (on your website)"

Best Advice: "If it's not on there, it's not going to sell."

What do they offer?

A massive collection of lifestyle, home and garden products to make your home and environment look and feel just how you like it.