PayPal Stories Archive

With over 70 years’ heritage in British bed and mattress manufacturing, Silentnight is the UK’s biggest and most trusted sleep brand – as chosen by customers who value the business’s innovation and quality service. 

When Silentnight opened its first flagship showroom in Manchester’s Trafford Centre in May 2017, however, it was challenged to diversify its traditional B2B business model and integrate B2C sales in-store and online.

 

As Phil Turner, Silentnight Ecommerce Manager, explains: ‘’we are trying to adapt our business model to align with the current needs of (our) customers.’’

 

To do so effectively, Silentnight required a partner that could help it to synchronise its online catalogue with its extensive in-store product suite of beds and mattresses.

 

Silentnight also needed to deliver great customer service in a 5,000 sq. ft showroom spread across two floors. As a result, its chosen supplier needed to enable swift delivery of product information to store associates and customers, and conduct seamless orders and payments in-store.

 

Silentnight’s hunt for such a supplier ended when it partnered with ebizmarts, the preferred Point of Sale (PoS) solution provider for the Magento Commerce platform.  Under the partnership, Silentnight also benefited from ebizmarts’ collaboration with payments specialists PayPal.

 

As a Magento retailer, Silentnight easily integrated ebizmarts POS and PayPal Here, PayPal’s mobile card solution, into its incumbent payments network. Ebizmarts’ iPad-based app, combined with PayPal Here’s card reader technology, was rolled out in-store, delivering a true omnichannel proposition.

 

Phil emphasises the speed and simplicity of integrating the systems in-store and online: “The ebizmarts POS and PayPal Here joint solution has been easy to set up internally and has plugged straight into the existing payments infrastructure.’’

 

The partnership has enabled Silentnight to sell its on-line Magento products in-store for a seamless omnichannel experience. Products, pricing, customer requests, redeemable coupons, orders and returns can all be managed via ebizmarts iOS-compatible app, while PayPal Here has enabled payments to be taken on the spot.

 

Phil summarises: ‘’Taking advantage of the joint solution being offered by ebizmarts POS and PayPal Here has meant that we can now sell direct to customers through our flagship showroom. When it comes to giving customers product information, taking orders, and taking payments, we can do everything from mobile POS systems in store. This also means that customers can also buy in-store and online seamlessly – such are the advantages of omnichannel solutions of this kind.’’

 

As a result, Silentnight has been able to easily translate its great online customer experience to the physical environment. As Phil explains, ‘’It’s enabled the company to offer a more fluid and enhanced shopping experience for customers – particularly as we operate over quite a large shop floor. For this reason alone, the mobile aspects of the ebizmarts POS for Magento solution have enabled us to save customers time when it comes to answering their questions; finding products that suit their needs; and taking payments – we’ve been able to do everything from the touch of a button.”

 

When discussing the partnership, Phil looks forward to continued success from working together with ebizmarts POS and PayPal Here: ‘’by doing so we hope that the Silentnight brand will go from success to success in the next 70 years and beyond.”

 

John Fitchett, Managing Director, ebizmarts, commented: ‘’The merging of online with the offline world is fast becoming synonymous in modern retailing where a truly omnichannel digital strategy is seen as a core aspiration. The power of Magento lends itself perfectly for use in the offline environment and we’re confident that the joint solution offered by both organisations will boost Silentnight’s customer services offering and retail ambitions in the years to come.’’