Boosting online paint sales by 100% during COVID lockdown

9 November 2020

With more people working from home or on furlough leave during lockdown, the country saw a significant spike in people undertaking decorating and home improvement projects.

Our client, Ashby Decorator Centre, was one business which was able to take advantage, thanks to their ecommerce website built by Quiet Storm.

Ashby Decorator Centre is an independent painting and decorating supplies business. It has been selling quality designer and trade paints and supplies for nearly 10 years, from its retail outlet in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire. For the past five years, it has also operated an ecommerce web store, www.designerpaintstore.com, which sells a wide range of leading brands including Farrow & Ball, Little Greene and Paint & Paper Library.

Since starting the website, its online presence and sales have gone from strength to strength as it has developed excellent, long lasting relationships with suppliers and customers. It has supplied designer paints to customers all over the UK and has been a proud part of some amazing painting projects.

An impressive set of results

Quiet Storm has worked with Ashby Decorator Centre for several years on various projects, so we were delighted to once again be appointed to redevelop the ecommerce website and give it a fresh coat of paint.

We designed and created a fully responsive version of the website, which allows customers to browse its full product range by brand or colour or using a custom-designed product selector. We also simplified the navigation to help make the site more user friendly, as well as rebuilding the basket and checkout process to make the customer sales process more streamlined and easier to complete.

When the UK’s retail sector went into coronavirus lockdown, Ashby Decorator Centre had to shut its doors for almost two months. However, in that time, its online sales soared by 100% when compared to the same period in 2019.

‘A spike in demand’

Ashby Decorator Centre Manager Will McNeice said: “We’ve worked with Quiet Storm for many years and have always been impressed by the results.

“The main aim of the website was to give us the ability to sell outside the small area where our shop is based and offer our products to a greater range of customers 24/7, rather than being limited to just selling via our high street store.

“With coronavirus, the website has been a godsend. We were forced to close our doors for around seven weeks because of lockdown. Because we were able to continue trading online, it meant we were able to take advantage of the spike in demand for paint and other decorating products. It also meant that while lockdown regulations were still in force for retailers, we could offer click and collect services until we could fully reopen.

“Since lockdown ended, the business has continued to pick up steadily. We certainly benefitted from being able to continue trading while the centre was closed, and it would have been a lot slower getting back to normal without having the website to keep things ticking over.”

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