Will powers on
A Cairns hardware business has embraced online selling so successfully it has restructured to create one of the biggest locally owned e-commerce stores supplying automotive parts in the region. Allied Bearings and Tools director Will Lucas (right) had contracted a third-party logistics company in Brisbane and Melbourne to help distribute goods bought via his website nationally. The business is now comprised of the Allied Auto online business and the bricks and mortar shopfront on Aumuller St, Bungalow.
A CAIRNS hardware business has embraced online selling so successfully it has restructured to create one of the biggest locally owned e-commerce stores supplying automotive parts in the region.
Allied Bearings and Tools director Will Lucas has contracted a third-party logistics company in Brisbane and Melbourne to help distribute goods bought via his website nationally.
The business is now comprised of the Allied Auto online business and the bricks and mortar shopfront on Aumuller St, Bungalow.
Mr Lucas said the past six months had been “very exciting” and “really stressful”.
“We’re just starting it off, but we’ve also got 50 parts available for distribution down south and we hope to bring that up to 100 soon,” he said.
“Things have been kicking along really well.”
During the last financial year, the team was not sure they would even make their revenue targets, but since embracing online sales, Mr Lucas said this year’s targets had been revised upwards.
“The last six months have been absolutely bonkers,” he said.
“It is the future for businesses, that’s for sure. It is just a matter of changing people’s perspectives on how to sell products. Everyone can sell online, it doesn’t matter if it’s a service or product.
“We’ve proved what can be done, even in remote Far North Queensland. The world is small now, it doesn’t matter where you’re based.”
There are now three staff in Cairns employed in the technical side of the business, six in Brisbane looking after purchasing and order dispatches, and a customer service team based overseas.
Mr Lucas wants to hold seminars in the future to share his tips on success and hopes to bring in a number of artificial intelligence marketing tools to the website.
At the beginning of the year, the business owner started working with Cairns Post NewsXtend specialists using Google AdWords and he noticed an immediate effect.
Mr Lucas told the Cairns Post in February the spike in demand caught him off guard but it was a pleasing result.