Bernard Savage make bespoke kitchens and furniture. They manufacture and sell from their showroom in Wolverhampton, where customers can see and touch the solid wood pieces. Buying from Bernard Savage is a unique luxury experience. Customers can even select raw tree trunks to have furniture carved from.
However, they had never sold online. They were unsure how people shop for bespoke products online and how they would find these customers. Also, they didn’t know how to translate their luxury showroom sale experience into an online experience.
But in 2018, eBay retail revival came to Wolverhampton. eBay Retail Revival offers brick and mortar retailers help finding customers and expanding their business online. The eBay team support retailers through every stage of establishing their business online. So far, the 64 retailers taking part have experienced an average growth of 36% in year-on-year revenue since joining the scheme in 2018.
The scheme introduced Bernard Shaw to selling on eBay. Shipping large and heavy items such as furniture was a logistical challenge. So, they started selling smaller items such as oak spice racks. But, once they had the right shipping solution in place, they started selling larger items such as bespoke tables, vanity units, benches, TV cabinets and Console Tables on eBay.
“eBay’s Retail Revival scheme has made us think about retail in a different way. It’s shown us alternative retail options.” – Bernard Savage
The showroom experience has always been pivotal to Bernard Savage’s customer journey. Buying bespoke requires lots of communication between customer and seller. It also requires strong trust. The customer needs to be confident that they’re investing with a company they can trust to interpret their instructions clearly and execute the project to a high-quality standard.
Bernard Savage asked Frooition to help bring this luxurious buying experience into their eBay listings.
Quality listing design to sell quality products
After familiarising herself with the brand, its story and buyer personas, Frooition designer Kim started to create Bernard Savage an eBay listing design.
Kim took inspiration directly from Bernard Savage’s products. She selected a colour palate to reflect the natural materials they’re made from, layered product images and even used a photograph of the wood grain from one of their table tops for the footer. She added extra details like a large photo header with hand written font detailing and unique selling point icons to communicate the professionalism and attention to detail that Bernard Shaw pride themselves on.
” Without a doubt, this listing design will give our prospective buyers more confidence to buy from us.” – Bernard Savage
As with all Frooition listing designs, the cross promotion section is dynamic. This means it will always show live, relevant listings. This feature is powered by Frooition eBay listing software. So Bernard Shaw can easily set rules for which products they would like to cross sell in each listing.
“We’ve found the software easy to navigate and it makes everything quicker to list.” – Bernard Savage
Selling bespoke items on eBay
Most Bernard Savage products are bespoke. This is their core unique selling point.
Selling bespoke products requires lots of customer communication before and during the sale. So, bespoke products are best advertised through eBay classified listings. Sellers pay a fixed fee to advertise products or services with eBay classified listings. Unlike regular listings where all communication must be kept within eBay, classified ads can feature details for customers to contact the seller and complete the sale off-site.
Frooition set up a bespoke category for Bernard Savage, to be populated with classified listings. The listing design features a box promoting their bespoke services and linking to this category. Classified listings can have custom listing design just like regular listings. For Bernard Savage, classified listings act as powerful advertisement for their bespoke furniture building service. And,unlike AdWords or banner ads, they will always have a flat fee, no matter how many views and sales they get from them.
Getting the most from eBay
“We are learning from Ebay all the time. Different questions crop up from prospective customers which allows us to think about the way we’re listing the items and what people actually want.” – Bernard Savage
Bernard Savage uses custom listing design to project their brand to eBay’s captive audience. Using different listing formats, they’ve created an instant sales stream and also leveraged their exposure on the platform as advertising for their bespoke services. Moreover, they’re using eBay to generate customer insight to keep improving their product descriptions and marketing.
If you’d like to get more from your eBay listings, fill your details below and a Frooition eBay consultant will be in touch.
