Shipping Success Stories

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WoodBlocX interview

Q: Give us a little background on WoodblocX and how you got to where you are now.

The original concept was created by a local nursery owner called Norman Fawcett, who was close to the family that owned the sawmill - working together to develop the product, WoodBlocX was born! We like to summarise WoodBlocX as basically being big wooden Lego for your garden. Back in 2002, WoodBlocX was sold in the likes of Wickes and B&Q, but poor sales caused the idea to be shelved. This was mainly due to us selling the product as individual wooden pieces rather than the potential of what people could build with WoodBlocX.

In 2012, Henry came aboard to join his dad (Philip Blake) and revolutionised WoodBlocX for the eCommerce age. The business picked up speed, and even got some investment from Peter Jones on Dragon's Den! Fast forward to today, and WoodBlocX modular garden systems are available in 8 countries across the UK and Europe, all stemming from an idea and a sawmill in the Scottish Highlands.

Q: WoodblockX started out as a small family business - would you say you've retained some core values from that stage?

We're absolutely still at heart a small family business, Henry and his dad are still very much involved. The team has grown organically from people Henry has known his whole life, or friends of friends who had skills that could help the business. That feeling hasn't changed - the family who revived the idea in 2012 are still driving the business every single day.

This also means there's no red tape or huge departmental meetings. We can sit down and get things done, just like back in the early days, helping us keep the core values of a small family business.

Q: WoodblocX recently received a Queen's Award for Enterprise - congrats! How did it feel to be recognised for your growth like that?

It was fantastic! We've worked really hard in France and Germany over the last few years to explore new markets and reach new customers. We're really pleased the Queen's Award has recognised the entrepreneurial spirit of WoodBlocX and we hope it can inspire other businesses based up here in the Scottish Highlands to grow outside of their comfort zones.

Best of all, we've proven to ourselves that the WoodBlocX concept can be replicated in markets outside of the UK and that European customers love to transform their gardens just as much as the British public. Hopefully our award helps other businesses to realise that it's not as scary as it seems to do this. We're a small team with small budgets, but if we can expand, find new markets and give it a go, anyone can!

Q: What would be the biggest tips you would give for British businesses trying to crack the international market?

Firstly, we were initially worried about the language barrier, but from our experience you can get 90% of the way there with clever language translation tools. All of our customer service is automatically translated by our chatbot. So by using the best of the best translation software, we can provide excellent customer service within our team here in the Scottish Highlands.

Secondly, if you're trying to break ground in new international markets, you can't always necessarily replicate your success in exactly the same way. In France and Germany, they garden very much like the UK - but when we launched in Italy, we've learnt customers there are much more interested in installing raised ponds than raised beds. It's all about evolving and adapting to what each country wants.

Q: How does Shiptheory help you manage your orders?

Shiptheory was integrated just before the Covid boom, which was unbelievable timing. Pre-Covid, we were uploading CSVs to Palletways manually, with people in our warehouse running around trying to match labels with pallets ten minutes before pickup. It was complicated, riddled with errors, and at least an hour a day was spent on this.

Henry found Shiptheory and overnight it went from mass panic to printing labels in a nice calm and efficient way. It has transformed the way that we ship and dispatch, and saved a lot of errors and time. There's nothing more you can ask for from a third party shipping partner.

Q: You have different domains for the different countries you operate in - has Shiptheory been able to adapt to this?

Shiptheory was initially just with us in the UK, but as we've expanded into new countries, Shiptheory has been with us all the way, seamlessly bolting on new carriers and new rules across different countries.

WoodBlocX is an example of how Shiptheory can grow with your business. We never thought Shiptheory would be able to help us outside of the UK, but here we are today with Shiptheory running our label system in 8 different countries for 8 different websites across multiple carriers. It's grown and developed with us, so we know Shiptheory will evolve and adapt to how we want to use it in the future.

Q: Are there any specific growth goals or milestones you have in mind for 2023?

For 2023, we're looking to continue our European growth, jumping into Belgium. We're also looking to expand north into Norway and Sweden, leveraging established pallet networks which can deliver orders in 7 days.

A quiet aim in the back of our minds is breaking ground in the US. It's a huge market, but there's a lot of challenges around importing a natural timber product. At the moment, the TV programme 'Love Your Garden', which originally aired in the UK is available to watch on Netflix USA - it's been marketing us out there ahead of time, so we have the lure of US customers getting in touch finding out if we can ship to them!

Q: Would you recommend Shiptheory to other online retailers?

There's no doubt, 100% - the carnage of manually printing shipping labels is not worth it anymore. Shiptheory saves time, money and helps your team focus on what matters most.

If you're experiencing growing pains feeling that there's gotta be a better way, that's the time to try Shiptheory - once you go Shiptheory, you never go back!

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