About Robert Dyas
With over 150 years of experience, a turnover of £195 million and 93 stores across the south of England, Robert Dyas is a name customers know and love. It’s a staple on the British high street, and they sell a range of homeware, small electrical appliances, gardening products, kitchenware, DIY, and consumer electronics. Robert Dyas was bought in July 2012 by the Theo Paphitis Retail Group.
The Challenge
Robert Dyas aimed to significantly grow their ecommerce channels without the need for investments in distribution centres or taking on inventory risk. While they were already utilising dropship, their challenge included speeding up supplier onboarding. Their existing system required constructing one-way, point-to-point EDI connections with each supplier, resulting in a slow onboarding process limited to 1-2 suppliers per month.
Furthermore, the lack of visibility over stock availability and order status posed an additional challenge, threatening to create customer experience headaches as they expanded their dropship channels.
In addition, the accounts team at Robert Dyas faced difficulties reconciling supplier invoices with related customer orders, adding another layer of cost and complexity to their operations.
The Solution
Virtualstock's Distributed Order Management Platform, informed by dropship best practices by leading retailers, is designed to directly tackle the challenges faced by Robert Dyas.
Through a single connection to Virtualstock, Robert Dyas was able to quickly and efficiently onboard hundreds of suppliers within a matter of months, eliminating the slow onboarding process that had previously limited them to 1-2 suppliers per month.
The Virtualstock Platform ensures complete visibility into stock availability, order status, and delivery updates, effectively resolving the issue of limited visibility that had previously hindered their ecommerce growth plans. This resulted in a dramatic increase in gross merchandise value (GMV), where dropship sales now total £80 million GMV, exceeding net margin expectations.
Additionally, Virtualstock's invoicing module was custom-built around Robert Dyas' specific requirements, and streamlines invoice reconciliation to eleviate pressure on accounting and finance resourcing.
"Virtualstock is a key technology partner to Robert Dyas and has enabled us to deliver huge online growth. Well over half of our online sales are now driven by dropshipping and Virtualstock has allowed us to scale this business profitably whilst also improving customer experience."
Theo Paphitis Chairman, Theo Paphitis Retail Group
