Serious fun; serious business

Specialist online retailer BoysStuff.co.uk has been transformed from loss maker to profitable business in under a year – and CEO Gary Beresford says this would not have been possible without Midas Direct, the leading e-commerce solution from Sanderson.

That refocusing included rationalising the IT systems. BoysStuff was running on Sanderson’s Midas Direct, but another online retail site within the business, was using bespoke software developed in-house. “It made no sense for the sites to operate on separate systems,” says Beresford. “I had to take a view on whether it was cost effective to develop and maintain our own software, or to go with a specialist software provider.”

Gary Beresford knew which option he preferred, but decided to seek the views of the workforce.  Midas Direct won by a long chalk: “The warehouse team, in particular, were adamant that Midas should be the choice, they find it incredibly easy to use,” he says.

For Gary Beresford, the decision was one of pure economics:

“We are not a software development firm, we’re an online retailer.  It makes absolute economic sense to rely on a specialist provider of software solutions like Sanderson.”

The system has delivered on its promises for Boysstuff. The company now has a scaleable product that can grow in line with the business, and a system that can be supported around-the-clock: “We have a ready-made contingency plan in the 24-7 cover we have as part of the licence agreement. The transformation has been immense,” says Gary Beresford. “Thanks to remote access, I can now see what is happening, in real time, throughout the business. It’s all about better control, which enables better management decisions to be made.”

But it’s not only top-level benefits for senior managers. Midas Direct has brought greater control and efficiency throughout the business. BoysStuff’s warehouse team, for instance, no longer has to print picking lists from two systems. And temporary workers – critical for this seasonal business – now only require brief training to be up to speed: “You can imagine the extra training involved when we were running both systems,” says Beresford. “It caused serious inefficiencies within the business and compromised customer service levels. There was far too much manual intervention in most processes and human error was inevitable.”

All that has now changed. Six months after  Gary Beresford joined the company the business had progressed significantly and broken into profit. “We wouldn’t have been able to transform the business that quickly without Midas Direct. As an online retailer, this system is the engine room of the whole operation – it is business critical,” confirms Gary Beresford.

Now the BoysStuff business is in such good shape, the company has exciting growth plans, both organic and by acquisition. “The capability and versatility of Midas Direct fits well with our strategic objectives. We will grow our online retail business by improving and developing this operation – and by identifying new niches. The system will support that very easily. We can bolt on multiple online front-ends, but retain one infrastructure behind the scenes. That means one warehouse system, one accounting system and so on – a single window on multiple outlets.”