Challenge

For more than 30 years, Houzer has enhanced millions of homes with high-quality kitchen sinks and taps. For most of that time the company’s typical customers were builders and wholesalers; individual homeowners who were interested in Houzer’s inventory had to go through third-party marketplaces. In 2022, Houzer CEO Michael Challinger decided it was time to remove the company’s reliance on third-party markets and begin its first direct-to-consumer (DTC) business by launching an e-commerce site.

“We had a typical brand site that had information about our products and the company, but it had no e-commerce capabilities,” said Challinger. “So a DTC e-commerce site was an exciting new channel for us and a new way to reach our customers directly.”

Houzer wanted its e-commerce site to be the centre of its unified commerce environment. It needed consistency across all its sales channels and customer experience features, like payment method flexibility and easy checkouts. At the time, Houzer had no online payments capabilities of its own.

The lack of a centralised sales platform – combined with a rudimentary tech stack – meant synchronising product data was a complex process for Houzer, costing its team additional time and resources to solve inconsistencies across channels. Because Houzer could not accept online payments, business-to-business (B2B) customers had to mail checks or swipe their cards at Houzer’s offices. The company wanted to give their B2B customers a faster and more convenient option, which meant a secure online payment solution.

By the time Houzer decided it needed to launch an e-commerce site, it was on a tight timeline – in just eight weeks Challinger was scheduled to attend a conference in Miami, where he planned to promote the new site.

Solution

Houzer turned to BigCommerce, a leading open SaaS e-commerce platform and Stripe partner. Challinger was drawn to BigCommerce's enterprise solution, which would allow Houzer to customise its e-commerce site and create a unified commerce experience tailored to its B2C customers. The platform also gave Houzer the tools to synchronise product data across its many third-party markets, easily grow to include new products, and clearly display its large and complex product catalogue.

Houzer chose Stripe as its payment solution because of Stripe’s easy integration with BigCommerce. With Stripe Payments, Houzer can provide customers with a wide range of payment methods, a frictionless checkout experience, and secure online B2B transactions. “Our B2B customers were previously posting us cheques,” said Challinger. “Being able to provide a Stripe payment portal was a huge deal for us."

Setting up the BigCommerce website and integrating a Stripe payments solution was a simple process, ensuring Houzer could meet its eight-week deadline. Houzer was able to migrate its entire product catalogue from its legacy website onto the BigCommerce platform with embedded payments. By the time the Miami event arrived, Challinger was ready to showcase the new site to the industry.

“Going into our BigCommerce deployment, we were worried that integrating payment processing was going to be heavy technical work,” said Challinger. “Having everything work so quickly has been really nice. Stripe Payments has been bulletproof for us."

Results

Eight weeks to launch new e-commerce site with BigCommerce and Stripe

The close partnership between BigCommerce and Stripe helped Houzer launch its DTC business under a tight two-month timeline. With their support, Houzer created its first e-commerce site and set up a payment solution without issues, gaining a new revenue stream in eight weeks.

“From a business priority standpoint, the launch of our DTC channel gave us a very profitable direct revenue stream and helped us gain a direct relationship with our consumers and business customers,” said Challinger.

118% overall revenue increase since launch

BigCommerce's fully customisable platform empowered Houzer to provide its customers with a clear product catalogue that was consistent across all its third-party markets and physical stores. Houzer has increased its overall revenue by implementing a modern tech stack that unifies online and in-person payments.

"We went from not having a DTC site to having a functional site, and the results speak for themselves,” said Challinger. “We're only one year after launch, and the site is already on its way to being a double-digit percentage of our digital revenue, and we’ve seen an overall revenue increase of 118%. That's the real takeaway.”

150% growth in online transactions

By integrating Payments, Houzer gave all its customers more freedom to choose the way they'd like to pay. As a result, the company’s overall online transactions increased by 150%. It also solved the issue of B2B customers having to mail in checks or pay in person by offering a simple and secure online alternative.

"Simplifying our B2B transactions has been a big win. We don't have many issues, we can take a huge variety of cards, and Stripe Payments synergizes very well with the B2B tools that BigCommerce offers,” said Challinger. “Having control over payment processing is a key feature for us, and we’re very happy with what Stripe has provided."

About Partner

BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that empowers merchants to sell more. Its Open SaaS solution is fully customisable, allowing businesses to build, innovate, and design an online store that puts customers first. Users can easily integrate payments through Stripe, so they can process transactions and manage payment information all on the BigCommerce platform.Learn more about BigCommerce.