4gadgets is a refurbished technology brand which has been working to change the refurbished technology market for the better since it launched in April 2015. It sells through its own website, as well as on Amazon, Back Market, and eBay. 

Since launching in 2015, 4gadgets has used a custom-built back-end operating system and front-end website. However, thanks to several years of double-digit growth, it quickly outgrew this and needed a new inventory management system and a new front-end website.

We caught up with David Ansell, Head of E-Commerce at 4gadgets, to find out how Linnworks impacted this transition — and unlocked even greater growth.  

Life before Linnworks: Uploading stock and manual price updates 

Prior to Linnworks, 4gadgets was relying on an ERP system that was a bottleneck for operations — and growth. According to Ansell, “Previously it could take us several days to upload stock on our ERP. With Linnworks, we can now upload 100s of units per day in minutes.” He continues, “This has helped us turnover stock far quicker, thereby increasing our sales growth.” 

Managing stock isn’t the only challenge that 4gadgets was facing — price updates were another sticking point. Ansell explains, “Prices all had to be done manually in a complex and long-winded step-by-step procedure on our previous ERP.” 

Linnworks has helped cut this curve, as Ansell describes, “We can now upload prices via CSV. This has helped us ensure we are always offering a competitive price vs our competitors.” 

A seamless ecommerce operation — from inventory to shipping 

“With Linnworks, we’re able to store all product information and attributes for our products in one place that feeds directly to our website and marketplaces.” Ansell highlights. He continues, “This ensures we are providing accurate information to our customers and gives us the ability to change anything incorrect or ambiguous very quickly.” 

Human error has also been reduced, while increasing levels of customer service. Ansell explains, “We can process orders that come directly from our website and marketplaces, without having to enter in the data manually.” As a result, “This has reduced the human error aspect and increased our customer service.” 

Our solution has helped to streamline 4gadgets’ operations significantly. Ansell explains, “Linnworks has improved operational efficiency by streamlining stock, price, inventory management and shipping processes.” 

“With Linnworks, we’re able to store all product information and attributes for our products in one place that feeds directly to our website and marketplaces.”

David Ansell

Unlocking growth for a mobile-first business 

“[Adopting Linnworks] has enabled us to list and manage stock daily, update pricing in bulk more regularly,” Ansell comments. He expands, “We’ve achieved this whilst being able to process orders and dispatch goods via automatic data flows and without the requirement of updating everything manually and thus reducing human error.” 

This newfound control has had a fundamental impact on the way 4gadgets operates. Ansell confirms this, “This change has also enabled us to operate a fully functional mobile-first website, feeding through all the product inventory data and attributes from Linnworks for an enhanced customer experience whilst also being able to integrate with more third party technology partners.” 

Multi-channel order growth thanks to Linnworks 

“Since using Linnworks we’ve seen order growth of 26% across all of our channels combined,” Ansell confirms. He continues, “We simply couldn’t list stock quickly enough to see this growth previously.” 

With great growth comes great responsibility. Ansell quips, “As a result, we have had to increase our annual order allowance with Linnworks to keep up with our growth and success!” 

“Since using Linnworks we’ve seen order growth of 26% across all of our channels combined.”

David Ansell