BigCommerce Helps Victoria Health Bring Beauty and Wellness to the Masses
See how customizable, cost-effective and reliable BigCommerce is and why we built it that way.
9%
increase in customers
36%
increase in conversion rate
8%
increase in orders
Performance metrics compare January 1-June 30 2021, to July 1-December 31, 2020.
Changing the face of natural health
With over 3,500 products live on its site and a loyal newsletter following that exceeds 350,000 readers, Victoria Health has grown to become the United Kingdom’s (UK) premier online retailer for natural health and beauty products.
Co-founders Gill Sinclair and pharmacist Shabir Daya have been bringing their beauty and wellness products direct to customers for more than two decades, making Victoria Health one of the first health and beauty ecommerce stores in the UK.
Victoria Health offers its own skin and hair care products and supplements as well as those of other vetted brandsto address the beauty and wellness concerns of its customers.
“We have never sold anything we don’t believe in,” said Lara Sinclair, Chief Operating Officer for Victoria Health. “Over the years we have introduced a number of brands that have gone on to be a global phenomena and we have a lot of passion and put a lot of work, effort and wisdom into continuing to seek out new brands that will make a positive difference to our clients.”
The philosophy of Victoria Health is one of education and evolvement for the enhancement of health, aging and wellbeing. This viewpoint supports the brand’s long-held vision of radically changing the face of natural health and the media is taking notice. Media publications such as Vogue, Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Condé Nast Traveller, Glamour Magazine, Elle, and You Magazine, have all covered Victoria Health’s success.
CHALLENGE
Letting go of the archaic
A true pioneer, Victoria Health had built, developed and managed its first website in-house from the inception of the business. “It wasn’t difficult but that was because the internet was not what it is today. Our initial site remained static for months on end with just four products shown at the bottom of our home page. It was so archaic and I laugh whenever I think about it,” said Gill Sinclair, Co-Founder of Victoria Health.
As with all forward-thinking companies, Victoria Health always has an eye out for new ways and technologies to improve its business operations and customer experience. “As ecommerce companies like BigCommerce have grown and developed their offerings, we began to realize how a SaaS solution could benefit our business,” Lara Sinclair said.
BigCommerce’s open SaaS platform is designed to help merchants, like Victoria Health, create differentiated ecommerce experiences that are secure to transact online, stable on the front and back end and scalable to grow as the business grows.
“As ecommerce companies like BigCommerce have grown and developed their offerings, we began to realize how a SaaS solution could benefit our business.”
LARA SINCLAIR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, VICTORIA HEALTH
SOLUTION
Enter BigCommerce
After its own review following an agency recommendation, Victoria Health selected BigCommerce as its SaaS ecommerce provider.Â
“We felt we could trust BigCommerce to keep our site up and running and provide a wide range of features and the basic functionality to enable us to sell more products to a growing community of shoppers,” Lara Sinclair stated. “BigCommerce enables us to focus our development time and money on enhancing the customer experience and increasing sales because it provides us with a solid foundation and framework for our business to function.”
Victoria Health is continuing to look for ways to enhance its website. It is exploring BigCommerce’s capabilities and third-party integrations for the right tools that will improve its sales, customer experience and level of business insights.Â
When it comes to communicating with customers the content management software, Drupal, helps Victoria Health share a vast amount of information through workflows for content publishing as well as managing the brand’s online membership program.
“BigCommerce enables us to focus our development time and money on enhancing the customer experience and increasing sales because it provides us with a solid foundation and framework for our business to function.”
LARA SINCLAIR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, VICTORIA HEALTH
RESULTS
Content leads the way to business success
By design Victoria Health’s website is a content-driven force to be reckoned with. The brand makes it a point to communicate with customers on a weekly basis through its highly popular newsletter, Weekend Read, where owner Gill Sinclair shares her thoughts on life, health and wellbeing, company offers and the newest songs added to The VH Playlist.
“Our traditional newsletter is an incredibly powerful and effective way of engaging with our customers. It remains unparalleled for creating connection and communication with our clients, as well as improving sales,” Lara Sinclair said.
But that’s not all the content you’ll find on the brand’s website. In addition to products for sell and the newsletter, customers also will find the following:
Health with Shabir provides health knowledge and insights from Victoria Health’s in-house pharmacist, Shabir Daya.
Trinny and Shabir Live brings TV host Trinny Woodall and Shabir together to bring shoppers a wealth of information on health and wellbeing.
Sarah Stacey’s Health Notes shares with readers healthy self-care tips to help them live with greater comfort and ease.
BigCommerce is not only the engine that helps Victoria Health stand up vast amounts of content, but also process and ship high volumes of products without crashing or taking a long time to deliver. This was not the case with its previous platform.
The good news is customers are responding to the strategic actions Victoria Health has taken. In comparing the first six months of 2021 to the last six months of 2020, Victoria Health experienced a 9% growth in customers, a 36% increase in its conversion rate and an 8% increase in orders.
LOOKING AHEAD
Keeping customers happy
Confident that its customers are finding the benefits of the enhanced service it can now provide through BigCommerce, Victoria Health is able to continue to focus on offering the best choice of brands and products to its customers.
“We trust that BigCommerce is focused on developing its services and platform to ensure we have access to the tools needed to meet customers’ expectations,” Lara Sinclair said.
BigCommerce is focused on developing and delivering the services, features and support Victoria Health needs and expects so it can continue to expand its business and satisfy its customers. We’ll be with them every step of the way.
Published: September 2021
“We trust that BigCommerce is focused on developing its services and platform to ensure we have access to the tools needed to meet customers’ expectations.”
LARA SINCLAIR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, VICTORIA HEALTH
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