Incy Interiors increased yearly revenue by 109.13%
How an Australian furniture company grew to a successful global operation
109.13%
increase in revenue YoY
65.52%
increase in orders YoY
20.69%
increase in conversion rate YoY
The Incy Interiors success story
In 2010, Incy Interiors founder Kristy Withers couldn’t find the perfect “big boy” bed for her son Oscar –– so she decided to figure out how to create one on her own.
Leveraging her background in marketing, she filled a gap in the marketplace and figured out how to bring quality designer furniture to the Australian market (and later to a global ecommerce audience.)
People took notice: Upon launch, more than 10 different retailers reached out to her wanting to stock her brand’s products in stores of their own.
Today, Incy Interiors has 2 brick-and-mortar retail locations and a growing online business through BigCommerce with revenue growth in their US store up more than 109% YoY.
Choosing BigCommerce over other ecommerce platforms
As told to BigCommerce by Kristy Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors.
When Incy Interiors was just getting started, I had a cheap website custom built out — but it was very basic. When we started to grow, I knew we needed something a bit more robust, so I started asking around to see what others recommended.
We looked into another custom-built website with an ecommerce portal, but it was going to be a $50,000-$60,000 project — and that just wasn’t in our budget at that point. Then BigCommerce was mentioned and we started looking into it.
Not only was it about a fifth of the cost, but it had tons of functionality and benefits right out of the box — things like cross-selling opportunities, social integrations, etc.
Cost was part of the decision-making process for us, but we quickly realized that with BigCommerce we also got an easy-to-use tool for our business that could scale with us.
Effective inventory management for a global operation
As told to BigCommerce by Kristy Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors.
With product being sold in two global markets (Australia and US), there are different regulations and insurance policies we have to be in compliance with, so we use two different BigCommerce stores to effectively manage inventory.
This ability also helps us better market to the tastes of these two different demographics and better manage our overseas shipping logistics. Our US customers don’t always want the same things our Australian customers do, so this helps us better differentiate our marketing efforts.
The good news was that we were basically able to just clone the site and go live in both markets without any lag time. It was extremely easy, and it makes our lives easier on the back end of things. It’s just a better overall user experience for all of our customers, too.
Easily editable product pages
We really like that product pages on BigCommerce are so easy to change. We can quickly go in and upload new photos with drag and drop tools, whereas with our previous site we had to resize images to 3 different sizes (thumbnail, regular view, large view.) It was a huge time-suck.
With BigCommerce, you literally just drag and drop — it’s so easy. We sometimes get interns with no experience, and they can figure out how to do complex operations like bulk product uploads quickly because the tool is so easy to use.
“With product being sold in two global markets (Australia and US), there are different regulations and insurance policies we have to be in compliance with, so we use two different BigCommerce stores to effectively manage inventory.”
Kristy Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors
“If you want to have a hobby, that's great. Do that. But if you really want a business, you need to make sure that the numbers work, the costs are low, and that you can actually optimize your website and make the sales. That's the cold, hard reality.”
Kristy Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors
“Cost was part of the decision-making process for us, but we quickly realized that with BigCommerce we also got an easy-to-use tool for our business that could scale with us.”
Kristy Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors
Leveraging BigCommerce’s integrations for simplified marketing
As told to BigCommerce by Krista Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors.
We use several different integrations with BigCommerce right now, but we like the social tools that make it easy to optimize things like email campaigns we send out through MailChimp.
We’re currently setting up a more robust CRM system, but we use MailChimp to work on lowering cart abandonment rates and staying in touch with our customers. We also like that the social media tools for Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram make it much easier to share our products.
Business or hobby? Make the call.
I often get asked for advice on online business ownership. My one piece of advice is to decide if you want your brand to be a hobby or a business. They are very different approaches.
If you want to have a hobby, that's great. Do that. But if you really want a business, you need to make sure that the numbers work, the costs are low, and that you can actually optimize your website and make the sales. That's the cold, hard reality.
“With BigCommerce, you literally just drag and drop — it’s so easy. We sometimes get interns with no experience, and they can figure out how to do complex operations like bulk product uploads quickly because the tool is so easy to use.”
Kristy Withers, Founder of Incy Interiors
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