Back in 2006 the world of whole-leaf tea was boring, stuffy, and outdated. Meanwhile…cool things were happening in the world of coffee. A UK based company saw the opportunity to get everyone drinking real tea again and so, in November 2006 teapigs was born!
Their mission today is the same as it was back in 2006: to get everyone drinking top quality, whole-leaf, great tasting tea - and to do business a bit differently while we're at it. Fast forward to this year and their eCommerce presence has gone from strength-to-strength, with B2B now presenting a big opportunity for further growth.
The challenge
For many years, teapigs had been processing B2B orders manually over the phone or by email using Sage, creating a disjointed experience for their team and their customers alike. When running a small business, customers need to be able to order on their terms, so having to call or email between working hours can be highly inconvenient. teapigs had explored the idea of a B2B website previously, but it was always presented as something complex and unjustifiable from a budget perspective.
The solution
In late 2022, teapigs began their process of evaluating new B2B solutions that would work alongside their retail (DTC) setup that was already using Shopify. With a rapid turnaround and setup, using their existing Shopify store, they were able to enable a brand new B2B channel to accelerate their growth. With SparkLayer installed, this has now allowed:
- Self-service ordering for customers with 24/7 access
- Customers have full visibility of pricing as well as volumetric pricing tiers and pack sizes
- Customers can fully manage their account such as track orders and repeat purchase
- Multi-user access to a single account with the new ‘company users’ feature.
The results
With SparkLayer integrating seamlessly with Shopify, this has brought a number of other key improvements:
- Customers can order anytime, day or night and no longer need to wait for the teapigs team.
- teapigs can now ship trade orders from their Shopify Plus powered fulfilment centre.
- teapigs can now ship as soon as a B2B order lands, rather than having to wait until the once-per-day CSV export window that they used to rely on.
- Customers are loving the new functionality and teapigs are finally being able to deliver on feedback we’ve been receiving for years.
- teapigs have seen a 33% increase in AOV so far, having visibility of the full range is allowing customers to widen their view, rather than sticking to what they know when ordering over the phone or via email.
“SparkLayer couldn’t have been easier to setup. B2B ordering has been on our roadmap for years, but we’ve never been able to justify the budget or time required. SparkLayer allowed us to get B2B ordering up and running in a matter of weeks with very little technical effort, and negligible cost. The bulk of the work was basic front-end content. Product setup, pricing, quantities, shipping options etc. We were so impressed with SparkLayer that we immediately decided to launch B2B ordering in the US and are currently working on doing the same in Australia." ~ Reece Downey, Head of eCommerce, teapigs
Explore more
To learn more about teapigs, their product range, and the story of their brand, visit their website.
To see how SparkLayer works with Shopify, you can explore via the links below: