Replatformed in three months, then grew the direct channel from 1% to 55% of group turnover
A £120m marketplace-dependent business needed its own channel. I moved worldofbooks.com from Magento to a headless Commercetools stack in three months, then scaled it from £100k to £4.7m a month across seven storefronts while growing the technology team to 75 and more.
At a glance
- Client
- World of Books Group, PE-backed, £120m+ turnover, 200 million units a year
- Role
- Website Manager through to IT Director, 2011 to 2022
- Replatform
- Magento to headless Commercetools in 3 months
- Direct channel
- 1% to 55%+ of group turnover
- Monthly direct sales
- £100k to £4.7m
- Storefronts
- 7 international
- Team
- grew to 75+ across development and infrastructure
- Website
- worldofbooks.com
The situation
World of Books was one of the largest secondhand book sellers in the world. But in 2011 almost every sale went through Amazon or eBay. That meant marketplace fees on every order, no customer data, no control over pricing or presentation, and a valuation capped by dependence on someone else's platform. The board wanted a direct channel that could become the largest part of the group. There was no website, no team and, in the early years, very little budget.
What I did
Launched the channel from nothing. worldofbooks.com went live in 2011 on Magento. I ran it as a one-person operation initially, covering build, merchandising, SEO and marketing, and launched the first international storefront in Australia the following year. Early turnover passed £1m a year on a minimal budget.
Co-founded Ziffit. In 2013, as one of a four-person team, I designed and launched Ziffit.com, a trade-in site that let customers sell books, CDs, DVDs and games back to the group. We then built native iOS and Android apps with barcode scanning through the phone camera. Ziffit now takes in over £60m a year in items, with more than 70% of trades on the app.
Replatformed in three months. By 2017 the direct channel had outgrown Magento. I led the move to a headless, MACH-principle architecture built on Commercetools, with best-of-breed CMS, search and payment gateway. The migration was delivered in three months with rankings not just protected but improved after launch. It gave the site the headroom to scale cost-effectively and is the reason the direct channel could go from 2% to 50% of group turnover in the following two years.
Built the technology function. I grew the team from a handful of people to over 75 across development and infrastructure, including a near-shore European office of 30 or more developers, and led IT infrastructure, security, helpdesk and data protection. I set up the SDLC and prioritisation processes that let the business ship consistently at scale.
Improved conversion and cut cost. Integrated a new payment provider with Google Pay and Apple Pay, lifting conversion rate by 1.2 percentage points and cutting processing costs substantially.
Launched Shopiago. Turned the group’s technology into a SaaS product that let charities resell donated items online. Most major UK charities onboarded, including British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Barnardo’s.
Opened marketplaces. Led Amazon and eBay development and strategy, and made the group the first used-goods seller on Walmart.com in 2021.
Supported two PE transactions. Led the technology response to due diligence for the sale to Bridges Ventures in 2016 and Livingbridge in 2020, and chaired the Risk and Governance Committee. The group achieved B Corp status during the second process.
What made the difference
Choosing a headless architecture before it was fashionable. It let us swap components without rebuilding the site, launch new countries in weeks, and keep hosting costs flat while sales grew forty-fold. The other half was treating the technology team as a product team: close to the business, measured on commercial outcomes, not tickets closed.
He understands the business, he understands how to communicate the business needs to the development team, and is able to analyse and understand issues, bottlenecks and future problems. He has high standards and makes sure nothing is getting done without meeting those standards.