Pimberly Success Story: IronmongeryDirect

“Being able to find and filter products with ease and efficiency in Pimberly is a game-changer. I can export exactly the information I want with a click of the mouse, update launch dates, etc. without any fuss at all. Pimberly saves me about an hour a day.”

Senior Merchandising Manager, Ironmongery Direct

Ironmongery Direct logo

B2B &

B2C Stores

46,000+

products

2

websites

Google

Shopping

Bolting ahead of the competition

IronmongeryDirect is the UK’s largest supplier of specialist ironmongery. Founded in 1969, it began as a humble home & hobby supplies shop on Leigh-on-Sea high street.

The company put its success down to a simple 100-page catalog launched in 1999. As a result of this success, the company launched its first website in 2003 and changed its name in 2020.

Locking in great CX with a shift from catalog to online

Designing its first website in 2003 meant Ironmongery could embrace the online trading world. It was a huge success that led IronmongeryDirect to shift the focus from the catalog trade business to its online operations.

Before Pimberly, products for the web were managed in their catalog software. However, it was the classic “wrong tool for the job” as it was an inefficient and long-winded process. Because of this, the company was slowing its time to market and curbing its growth aspirations.

It was time to invest in a solution that would enable IronmongeryDirect to achieve these growth aspirations. The move to online enabled the company to promote more products with rich and detailed product descriptions and imagery. Overall, this totally transformed the customer experience they were offering compared to the previous catalog experience.

With Pimberly, IronmongeryDirect has been able to grow its online product range by 133%. By using Pimberly’s lifecycle functionality, careful measures are in place at each stage of a product’s enrichment to ensure no products are published without being fully enriched. With rich descriptions, customers can easily find all 42,000 products online. Overall, this has enabled the company to increase its reach and customer base.

great-CX-for-ironmongery

With Pimberly, onboarding new products is a breeze. We can handle far more products than we thought we could, and we can deeply enrich all of them with ease.

Senior Merchandising Manager, IronmongeryDirect

Climbing the ladder to attain scalable growth

scalable-growth-ironmongerydirect

With Pimberly centrally managing all of our product information, we were easily able to launch a new IronmongeryDirect website in half the time we expected.

IronmongeryDirect

With its online success, Ironmongery soon started to onboard more and more products. It soon reached the point where it had the biggest range in the UK, with over 18,000 products in stock.

Although this was a milestone to celebrate, managing this influx of products soon became untenable. To add to this, the quality of the product descriptions was suffering as a result of inefficient processes. The company wanted to do more, but it just wasn’t possible without a better way of managing and enriching product data.

Queue Pimberly! With a Product Information Management (PIM) platform, IronmongeryDirect took its eCommerce vision to the next level. Since deploying Pimberly, the company has seen huge efficiencies in the product data management processes, saving the company valuable time. Now, the company is using this time to launch another website  — ElectricalDirect.co.uk.

Using the scoping function within Pimberly, the company can create unique descriptions for each site aiding in their SEO efforts.

Opening the door to eCommerce success for this hardware company

Ironmongery plans to expand its product range, diversify into further markets, and quickly integrate product management into its wider internal channels. Pimberly is a key enabler and will empower the team at Ironmongery to streamline the enrichment process to give them a further competitive edge.

Start your Pimberly journey today…

Request your personalised online demo, and learn how Pimberly can transform your online strategy.

Pimberly screenshot on mac