Ecommerce and good warehousing practice ensure a positive outlook
2020 has been the year no business thought they’d have to face. The Covid-19 global pandemic and ensuing lockdowns, stalling economy and stuttering restart have left businesses reeling. Utopia, the UK’s market-leading supplier of tableware and glassware for the hospitality industry, has faced up to the challenge with resilience and enthusiastic determination.
The company was in an advantageous position to cope with the climate of uncertainty, having just moved to new warehousing and showroom premises in Langham Park, Chesterfield while still maintaining its London showroom. This enabled stock holding of all lines so Utopia was able to maintain a consistent ‘line fill’ rate which has not dropped below 98% throughout the crisis. There are over 3000 items held in stock ready for next day delivery.
The pandemic has accelerated the switch to online ordering and Utopia was ready to respond to this with its recently launched new website, which acts as a hub for customers to download collateral such as images, price lists and key promotional literature. This industry-leading ecommerce platform can process and track orders and offer end-to-end order analysis, allowing Utopia to streamline operations, match orders quickly, and speed up delivery. Customers can easily access any product via an innovative search engine that is based on thousands of keywords. It can give a responsive search not just on product names but also on colour, type, use and more.
“We’ve had an 80% uptake of online activity and now most of our orders and queries are dealt with online,” says Kathryn Oldershaw, marketing director, Utopia. “It’s definitely the way to go. However, we’re lucky in that if customers want to have a hands-on experience of our products then the London and Chesterfield showrooms are there for them to visit. We have ensured our showrooms are Covid-19 secure and comply with all current guidelines. Masks, wipes and hand sanitiser are all available and social distancing is in operation throughout both sites.
Going forward we are happy to report that Utopia is well placed to keep the hospitality industry supplied with the best quality, trend-setting product around.”