Brightpearl and BigCommerce: What Racquet Sports Group needs to ace ecommerce operations

The background

Jack Otton started his racquet sports retail business when he was just 14 years old. With an entrepreneurial flair from a young age, he officially started Racquet Depot UK in 2008. As of August 1st 2015, Jack also acquired major supplier, W & D Strings, a mail order wholesale business.

Now known as Racquet Sports Group, the retail and wholesale business is quickly becoming one of the largest resellers of brand name products for racquet sports equipment.

A combination of an online retail business and a mail order wholesale company, the business is dynamic, friendly, and knowledgeable. Racquet Sports Group reach their customers through their BigCommerce website, which accounts for 65% of their total sales, and the rest is split between eBay and the new mail order side of the business. Currently, they are also in the process of setting up an Amazon channel too.

We caught up with Jack to tell us more about the business.

The challenge

As an ambitious entrepreneur, Jack was looking for a platform to handle inventory across multiple channels, as well as everyday processes such as managing orders, taking payments, and keeping track of all the accounting.

Jack explains: “We were looking for a back office system to connect with BigCommerce, which could handle both inventory levels across multiple sales channels, and our accounts. I wanted to have as much visibility across the business as possible, ideally in one place.”

Key Challenges:

• Finding a solution with a pre-built BigCommerce integration

• Managing multiple sales channels from one centralized inventory

• Stability for growing the business

• Connecting their B2B and B2C business

The solution

The ‘out of the box’ integration with BigCommerce was an important factor for choosing Brightpearl as their software partner, and Jack found he liked even more capabilities Brightpearl had to offer after looking into the retail management system.

“One of the big deal-makers for us was Brightpearl’s integration with BigCommerce and with marketplaces like eBay and Amazon,” Jack said. “The multichannel integrations are really robust and not only that, the reporting is also very useful. We can see who is buying from which channel and all of our data is stored in one place, so it can be broken down to help us make informed business decisions.”

The ability to keep on top of business processes rather than being behind them is exactly what Jack needed when he chose Brightpearl. “Brightpearl has given me the ability to manage all the areas of my business efficiently and effortlessly in one place. I also like the aesthetics of Brightpearl; the layout and design is user friendly and I particularly like that it’s cloud-based, so I can access my business data wherever I am in the world.”

Key Strengths:

• Access to all data in one centralized location, 24/7

• Saving time by reducing manual data entry

• Team members now work from the same version of the truth

Jack adds: “Brightpearl is fundamental to the running of my business today; we use it all day everyday. It’s a cost effective efficient retail management system. As a result, we don’t need to hire another member of staff.”

The future

Racquet Sports Group has significant flexibility and offers superior shipping rates with some of the leading logistic companies for worldwide delivery. Combine this with their technical expertise, and it means they can stay ahead of their competition.

To support these determined goals, Jack is keen to expand his marketing plans. He says: “I would like to be doing more marketing, while my team focus on looking after existing customers and fulfilling orders. We want to sell more of our existing products in volume, trying not to sacrifice profit at the same time. Brightpearl will help us get there; it can scale with us and ensure we can handle the increase in orders.”