43% revenue growth in year one.

UK Workbenches, based in Mossley (Tameside), manufactures and supplies high-quality industrial workbenches, workshop furniture, and storage solutions to trade buyers across the UK. When Lee Burnham, the Managing Director, first contacted us, the business was being held back by its own digital infrastructure.

The existing OpenCart website was slow, looked dated, and made it difficult for trade customers to properly compare products by load rating, dimensions, and configuration options. Worse, the entire site — including company email — ran on cheap shared hosting. When the hosting had problems (which happened regularly), both the website and email would go down together. Orders that did come through the site often still required a follow-up phone call to clarify specifications or arrange delivery.

Lee knew the website needed replacing. He just hadn’t found anyone who understood the difference between a consumer shop and a proper trade e-commerce platform for industrial products.

The problems with the old setup

The combination of an ageing OpenCart installation on shared hosting created several specific issues:

• Poor product discovery — trade buyers couldn’t easily filter by the attributes that actually mattered to them (load capacity, work surface material, drawer configurations, etc.).
• Weak mobile experience — a large and growing percentage of enquiries were coming from phones and tablets, but the site performed poorly on mobile.
• Unreliable email — when the shared server had issues, the whole business lost email. This was unacceptable for a company taking orders.
• Manual order handling — even when an order came through the website, it often needed phone clarification, which slowed everything down and introduced errors.
• No real foundation for growth — the platform simply wasn’t capable of supporting the level of trade e-commerce Lee wanted to build.

The rebuild on Shopify

We moved the entire store to Shopify with a custom theme designed specifically around how trade and industrial buyers actually shop.

Key improvements included:

• Advanced filtering and comparison tools by load rating, dimensions, material, and configuration.
• Clear, well-structured specification tables that made it easy for buyers to compare similar products.
• Trade account functionality with appropriate pricing visibility.
• A checkout flow optimised for business purchasers (different delivery requirements, purchase order numbers, etc.).
• Professional photography and honest product presentation that matched the quality of the physical workbenches.

Alongside the website rebuild, we moved Lee’s email and core IT services off the failing shared hosting and onto Microsoft 365. This gave the business proper email deliverability, security, backups, and recovery options — without the ongoing reliability problems.

SEO and visibility work

We also carried out targeted SEO work focused on the high-intent product searches that trade buyers actually use. This wasn’t generic “SEO for everyone” — it was specific optimisation around industrial workbench terminology, load ratings, and workshop furniture searches that convert.

The results

The numbers speak for themselves:

• 43% revenue growth in the first year through the new website.
• 28% increase in average order value, as trade buyers found it easier to configure and compare products properly.
• 61% improvement in mobile conversion rate.

More importantly, the proportion of revenue coming through the website has grown dramatically. What was previously a minor channel is now responsible for a very large share of the business.

Ongoing partnership and the custom bookings system

We didn’t just deliver a new website and walk away.

UK Workbenches is on a monthly retainer with us. We continue to maintain the Shopify store, make ongoing improvements, handle security updates, and provide general digital support for Lee’s team when they need it.

One of the most valuable ongoing pieces of work has been the development of a custom bookings and scheduling system that integrates with the store. This allows the business to manage installations, site surveys, and deliveries more effectively — something that generic e-commerce platforms don’t handle well for companies that also do physical work.

In practice, Lee has a digital partner on retainer rather than an agency he has to tender to every few years. The relationship continues to evolve as the business grows and new requirements appear.

Why this project worked

Many e-commerce rebuilds for manufacturers and trade suppliers fail because the agency treats it like a normal consumer shop. Trade buyers have different needs — they compare specifications in detail, they often have accounts, they care about delivery options and lead times, and they expect the site to reduce (not increase) the amount of phone calls required.

The UK Workbenches project succeeded because we built the platform around how their actual customers buy, moved the unreliable hosting, and then stayed involved to keep improving the system over time.

This is the model we aim for with every client we work well with: start with a proper foundation, deliver measurable commercial results quickly, and then build a long-term relationship that keeps the digital side of the business moving forward without constant drama.

This case study reflects ongoing work with UK Workbenches as of 2026. The store and supporting systems continue to be developed on a monthly retainer.