Founded in December 2023, Cumbria Tile Centre has quickly emerged as a prominent ceramic tile distribution business in Carlisle, Cumbria. With a team deeply rooted in the industry, they knew from the start that in order to reinvent customer experience and outshine competitors in an ever-growing industry, they would have to stay one step ahead by modernising their operations.
The Ceramic Tiles Market in the United Kingdom is a thriving sector, projected to reach £1 billion by 2029 from £871 million in 2024.* In a competitive and ever-evolving industry, fresh approaches are essential to meet evolving demands and market trends.
So how does a new business such as Cumbria Tile Centre use innovative strategies to achieve successful results within such a short period?
One answer lies in a digitised approach. Sean Cornfield, Commercial Director, shares how they began their transformative journey with Kerridge Commercial Systems’ K8 Trader earlier this year: ‘We had all worked with Kerridge Commercial Systems during our previous places of employment, and we all knew that this would work for us.’
When considering the implementation of a new software, Cumbria Tile Centre knew that it would need to facilitate their growth whilst providing detailed insights, allowing the team to identify areas within the business that needed time and resource investment for better returns.
K8 Trader, a cloud-based business management and trading solution, proved to tick all the right boxes. Sean elaborates, ‘Prior to me starting in November, a contract was signed to bring in a till system and back office. We quickly realised that this was a mistake and the system was unable to provide us with the stock and sales management that we needed to successfully operate. We had no idea of what margin we were operating at, for instance.
‘Now, we’re able to use K8 Trader for stock management and margin control, whilst other functions make it easy to manage customer and supplier accounts.’
With an intuitive interface and robust features, K8 Trader enables fast order processing, efficient sales and purchasing and streamlined inventory control. It serves as a comprehensive solution for businesses such as Cumbria Tile Centre aiming to optimise their operations and drive growth.
Sean states that the implementation process itself was also seamless, thanks to prompt assistance from the Kerridge Commercial Systems team: ‘It was carried out quickly, with a lot of work done in the background to set up the product, customer and supplier files.
‘There has been lots of support to make the onboarding process painless. Whilst we have had some teething problems, it has been a very successful implementation.’
Looking ahead, Cumbria Tile Centre envision that they’ll be able to utilise Kerridge Commercial Systems for creating customer promotions and loyalty schemes, further enhancing customer engagement and retention. The company plans to open more locations over the next five years and are having to double the size of their warehouse already due to rapid growth in the number of products they now offer to market.
As they expand their footprint and product offerings, K8 Trader’s scalability and affordability remain instrumental in supporting their growth trajectory. ‘We knew that this would work for us. Obviously being small and a new enterprise, K8 Trader offered the functionality at the right scale and price point for us,’ Sean clarifies.
‘We’re confident that K8 Trader will remain a beneficial element in Cumbria Tile Centre’s growth strategy, enabling them to stay agile in the market through analytics capabilities, key metric tracking, optimised strategies and so on. We’re thrilled to see how they’ve has leveraged this software to future-proof their business and we’re committed to supporting their continued success,’ James Mitchell, Managing Director of Kerridge Commercial Systems UK and Ireland stated.
*References:
Ceramic Tiles Market in UK – Trends, Size & Growth (mordorintelligence.com)
