We have our fingers on the pulse of global retail

The Pentagon team is always busy launching new eBay stores for our clients, and we pride ourselves on incorporating new functionality and extending our clients’ international reach. The case studies below showcase examples of how we have used our knowledge and expertise to launch three eBay stores, with very different requirements.

SportsShoes re-launched:

SportsShoes was established in 1982, in order to meet the needs of athletes at all levels, by providing the widest selection of best value footwear and clothing, coupled with exceptional customer service. The company operates a successful high-street retail business, a mail order catalogue and a website.

SportsShoes had been selling on eBay for a long time when they spoke to Pentagon in May 2010 about optimising their store. They had a highly successful Amazon business and were getting increasingly frustrated by their lack of progress on the largest marketplace in the UK.

We were given full management of the eBay sales process, including customer service, which meant a complete re-launch of the store. Within the first year of Pentagon’s re-launch, SportsShoes saw a staggering 1000% increase in their eBay sales. Nowadays they are not only enjoying success on eBay in the UK, but a third of their revenue comes from eBay Germany, where Pentagon have built a dedicated German language sister store. In December 2012, we started selling SportsShoes products on eBay France, Italy and Spain as part of a cross-border trade project, making international trading a priority to develop throughout 2013. In the beginning of 2015 Pentagon launched SportsShoes eBay stores in the US and Australia.

Halfords integrate Click & Collect:

Halfords are the UK’s leading retailer of automotive and cycling products. Halfords’ vision is to help and inspire customers with their lives on the move.

At the end of 2014 Pentagon launched Halfords first eBay store, making sure it was ready in plenty of time to capitalise on the increased Christmas sales. Moving forward it was important to Halfords to integrate Click & Collect services across 400+ of their brick-and-mortar stores, helping to improve customer access to their products and increase footfall in stores nationwide.

Pentagon worked closely with the Halfords’ team to make sure that all the behind the scenes processes were fully automated. This has ensured that all purchased items are shipped directly from the Halfords distribution centre to the chosen to store, and returns & refunds are managed smoothly.

Pentagon then launched Halfords Click & Collect service simultaneously across 400+ stores and added additional extras for customers; including built & boxed options for bikes with free in store building, and fittings for blubs and blades when picked up in store.

Click & Collect has been a great success for Halfords with revenue doubling in the month following the launch. Halfords are now able to showcase a more joined up approach to their retail offering, seamlessly integrating their online preposition with offline.

Euro Car Parts in Germany, France & Ireland:

Euro Car Part’s is the UK’s leading distributor of parts for all makes of cars and light commercial vehicles, boasting over 155,000 different stocked part numbers. Their aim is to provide a consistent supply of original quality parts, with their Buyers & Product Managers searching the world to deliver the best range, value and quality for their customers.

Euro Car Parts already have a long standing eBay store managed by Pentagon, and were the first company to launch eBay Now in the UK; a service that uses the eBay owned delivery company Shutl to deliver items within 90 minutes of an order being placed. After successfully implementing eBay Now, the next step was to launch on major European eBay sites, making sure that orders were turned around quickly.

Euro Car Parts established that they wanted to launch first on eBay Germany, France & Ireland to broaden their international reach. Pentagon expanded the configurations on Euro Car Parts’ current eBay store to allow for cross-border trade into these markets. We managed the translation, localisation and optimisation of all product SKUs, enabling multi-lingual functionality across the three stores, and created responsive store designs.

Euro Car Parts have now successfully launched native stores on ebay.de, ebay.fr and ebay.ie. The multi-lingual responsive functionality allows the design and language of the eBay store to be automatically changed depending on the country of access, allowing for a smooth cross-border transition. The expansion into new markets has led to Euro Car Parts most successful month, in terms of revenue, since they have been managed by Pentagon.