Williams Commerce shortlisted for the UK Ecommerce Awards 2024

Williams Commerce are delighted to be shortlisted for the UK eCommerce Awards with our client Gilson for B2B Ecommerce website of the year. This is the second time we have been shortlisted for the awards having been finalists back in 2022.

This is a fantastic achievement that we are incredibly proud of. Our CEO Rob Williams shared:

“We’re delighted once again to be shortlisted this year. It’s a true testament to our great customers and our dedicated and talented team on delivering outstanding results.”

When we think of ecommerce, we naturally think of the B2C experience but through this project, we have proved, yet again, that it is possible to push boundaries and create exceptional B2B experiences.

Gilson is a leader in the life sciences industry and this project saw our ecommerce experts collaborate with Gilson’s internal team to launch a new B2B ecommerce website featuring an innovative customer portal. The portal went on to achieve a 245% higher average order value compared to other areas of the site.

About Williams Commerce

Williams Commerce are an award-winning full-service ecommerce agency. Since 2009, we have helped build, optimise and grow hundreds of leading ecommerce brands.

From website development and platform selection to user experience, road mapping and digital marketing services, we do much more than building websites and support our clients across the ecommerce journey to drive long-term success. As a platform-agnostic agency, we also believe in implementing solutions that fit clients’ needs in the present and beyond.

With a team of over 70 certified professionals based in the UK, US and India, we support a wide-ranging portfolio of clients from B2B, B2C and D2C clients in sectors including Automotive, Fashion & Sports Apparel, FMCG, Home & Garden, Arts & Culture and more.

Over the last year, we have been on an exciting trajectory of growth as we joined Brandwidth Group, part of the wider Next 15 PLC. This move has provided us with a global network of digital expertise to strengthen our services.

Our work with Gilson

We came onboard to help Gilson fulfil their exciting growth plans and automation strategy. They wanted to elevate their B2B ecommerce website and capabilities to offer an exceptional user experience. We delivered this through a new ecommerce website featuring an innovative customer portal.

Gilson supplies liquid handling, purification and extraction products and consumables for the laboratory market and its core target audience includes universities and major corporations.

After Gilson replatformed to Adobe Commerce, we worked together to create the new website and customer portal. As part of this work, our team conducted a full UX/UI audit and recommended migrating Product Information Management and EDI Implementation to provide an omnichannel view for customers. We also automated and streamlined processes delivered by customer support, finance and sales teams by synchronising customer accounts with a cloud-based solution, CloudSuite Industrial (CSI). This integration from WEB to CSI had not been done before at this level.

By streamlining the buying journey, we have not only added value to customers but also reduced enquiries to the customer support team as customers can now obtain invoice status, online order updates, check account balances and payments via Adobe Commerce B2B functionality and customised account management. In addition to this, we enabled simple payments via the ‘my account’ area using Stripe and Cybersource pay-by-pay links to support the payment of secure invoices, payment processing, fraud protection and whole statement balances in different regions.

This was a challenging and exciting project for our team, and we are proud of the results. In addition to a 245% higher average order value, the new portal also achieved a 30% higher number of views and 30 seconds more engagement time compared to other areas of the site. We have also seen a reduction in enquiries to the customer support team and duplicate accounts.

The practical benefits and efficiencies delivered by Gilson’s new customer portal have been a gamechanger, not just for the industry, but for the B2B customer experience as a whole.

Gilson’s IS Digital Manager Kathryn Fletcher reflected on the project:

“Throughout this major piece of work, we conducted discovery sessions with all the key stakeholder groups to design the correct logic for the Gilson business, this process was thorough and ensured our build process was as efficient as possible. As a testament to the quality of resource onboard this project, we delivered on time and on budget, with minimal stabilisation required post launch. We are grateful to the entire team whom we worked with incredibly closely throughout this project, without them the journey would have been much harder!”

For further details on our work, check out the full case study.

We look forward to the awards ceremony and wish all finalists the very best of luck. Follow us on LinkedIn for the latest updates.