Selling into the UK’s biggest home improvement retailers means working to their delivery promises, their portals and their cut-off times, often several of them at once. For a lean team shipping single items out of one warehouse, every new retailer adds another layer of manual work.

For Home Improvement specialist Insight Retail Limited, that manual work had become the limit on growth. Every order was rekeyed, every label chosen by hand, and every retailer portal updated one at a time.

Since going live with Linnworks in April 2025, Insight Retail has automated its order processing from end to end. The team saves two to three hours every day, has more than doubled its channel connections, and delivered its two strongest months on the platform in August and September 2026.

We sat down with founder and Managing Director Steve Collinge and Operations Director Chris Lambert at their warehouse in the Black Country to find out how.

About Insight Retail Limited

Founded in January 2018, Insight Retail Limited is a Home Improvement specialist based in Blackheath, in the Black Country. From kitchen and bathroom splashbacks to ironmongery, handrails and padlocks, it sells to tradespeople—kitchen fitters, plumbers, painters and decorators, builders—as well as consumers across the UK and Ireland. Unlike many suppliers in the space, which still ship full pallets into retailer distribution centres, just 5% of its business goes through that traditional wholesale route. “We’re the other side of that coin,” Steve explains. “95% of it is single products going out in a brown box direct to consumers homes.”

The business has two sides to its operation: its own warehouse, which picks, packs and ships to 17 channels and marketplaces with free next-day delivery, and a dropship partnership model, listing up to 1,600 products for brands that lack marketplace knowledge and expertise. Insight Retail began with its own website www.splashback.co.uk and eBay, and today every one of its channels runs through Linnworks, including B&Q, Screwfix, Wilko, Robert Dyas, The Range and Amazon. Since going live in April 2025, it has also launched Toolstation, Debenhams, ManoMano and Tesco through Linnworks, and in 2026 began shipping directly to Irish consumers through Homebase Ireland and Woodies.

The challenge: More channels, more admin, same team 

As Insight Retail added more customers, more channels and more products, the volume of order processing grew with them, and almost every step had some manual intervention.

Orders arrived from multiple platforms and were keyed into the company’s own ERP system. Customer details were then re-entered into the courier system to print a label, before the team went back into each retailer’s portal to confirm shipping. Choosing the courier service added another layer: for every order, the team checked the item’s weight and dimensions, compared the available services and picked the most cost-effective option by hand.

This created challenges across the operation:

• Time: Every order took a lengthy amount of time to process, and the workload grew with every new channel.
• Errors: Manual entry meant a high margin for error, with the risk of incorrect customer or product details being entered.
• Pressure on the team: Monday mornings after weekend sales were always the biggest challenge, or days when someone was off, which meant racing to get everything picked and packed before the courier cut-off
• A ceiling on growth: Taking on new retailers meant more admin, more people, or both.

For Steve, the bigger cost was what the business couldn’t do. As volumes grew, two to three hours of daily admin would have become four to five, and new channels would have been turned down rather than taken on.

“Without Linnworks, we just wouldn’t have been able to scale the business at all. The handbrake would have been permanently on, and we would probably have decided not to take on further channels because of the complexity. We’d have had to employ more people just to deliver effectively the same business”

Steve Collinge, Managing Director, Insight Retail Limited

Finding a partner built for where the business was going

Steve and Chris spent a three month period searching for a solution. Steve attended ecommerce events and the pair evaluated the options together through demos, meetings and reviews.

The key criteria was clear: automate as much as possible, provide a solid foundation and be able to scale. For Insight Retail, that meant strong marketplace connectivity and an integration with VirtualStock, the dropship platform behind many of its retail partners, both of which Linnworks already had in place.

The deciding factor was confidence in the future. Each time a new marketplace launched, Steve found the Linnworks integration was already in place , so Insight Retail could add channels as soon as they became available.

“Whether it was Temu, Checkatrade or Tesco, Linnworks was already on LinkedIn saying we’ve made the connection. That was hugely reassuring. I didn’t want connectivity to be a limiting factor, and it was a significant factor with other businesses we evaluated.”

Steve Collinge, Managing Director, Insight Retail Limited

For Chris, a recommendation from another business, the team’s own research and a short demo sealed the decision. Given the number of marketplaces Insight Retail sells on and the way it uses courier services, he describes the choice as “a bit of a no-brainer”.

2,269 automated actions, only 2 manual actions

Today, Chris’s working day starts with reviewing the orders in Linnworks and printing everything off for the team to pick.

Rules Engine: Automated courier selection

The feature Insight Retail relies on most is the Linnworks Rules Engine. With every product’s weight and dimensions held in Linnworks, the Rules Engine chooses the best and most cost-effective service from the available couriers and generates the shipping label automatically.

“Before, we had to decide what the weight of the item was, what the dimensions were, look at the services available and choose which one would be the best and most cost-effective. Now Linnworks does all of that for us. Across all the orders we take each day, that alone saves around an hour of admin.”

Chris Lambert, Operations Director, Insight Retail

In September 2026, the Rules Engine carried out 2,269 automated actions on Insight Retails account, against just two manual interventions. Over the last 12 months, Linnworks has generated more than 14,000 shipping labels for the business across 27 courier services.

Accurate product data has also transformed order accuracy. Chris says errors have fallen to “virtually zero”, with Linnworks flagging any issue before an incorrect label is ever created.

Tapping into the Linnworks ecosystem

Over the last 12 months, Insight Retail has started drawing on the Linnworks partner ecosystem, prioritising the partners that will have the greatest impact on the business. The first was Conjura.

Every morning, Steve receives an email from Conjura showing the previous day’s sales, average basket value and what the business is making, set against its investment in retail media and advertising on channels such as Amazon and eBay.

“It’s the perfect solution and just gives us what we need,” says Steve. “There’s so much more in the ecosystem we can take advantage of, and I’m really keen to find out which other partners could help us.”

“Linnworks is a really good silent partner that’s there in the background, doing so much of the work we used to do manually. It just happens now. It’s part of how we run the business day to day.”

Chris Lambert, Operations Director, Insight Retail

The impact: 41% growth and two to three hours back every day

Once Insight Retail was up and running, the impact was immediate. Chris estimates Linnworks has cut processing time per order by around 90%, saving at least two hours every day and up to three on peak days.

• Time back for growth: Time once spent rekeying orders, choosing services and printing labels now goes into growing the business
• 8 → 17 channel connections: From seven or channels at go-live to 17 connections today, with at least three more in the pipeline before the end of 2026
• 41% growth in sales value: September 2026 sales value up 41% on September 2025, with August and September 2026 the two biggest months since the business went live on Linnworks
• Bigger orders: Average order value up 37% year on year across 01 July to 30 September 2026
• Free next-day delivery: Now offered on almost every channel

The biggest change, Steve says, is what the team now does with the time it has won back. 

“After Linnworks, we were free and had the time to scale effectively. That saving enabled us to invest time in listing and optimising products, improving content and taking on new channels.”

Steve Collinge, Managing Director, Insight Retail

More channels, same team

Since go-live, Insight Retail has added a new retailer or marketplace platform roughly every two months.

“We just physically couldn’t have done that with the existing team and the systems we had,” We’d probably have added one or two additional channels. Without Linnworks, we would have been stuck in the same place.”

Steve Collinge, Managing Director, Insight Retail

A faster delivery promise customers notice

Faster processing has allowed Insight Retail to offer free next-day delivery on almost every channel, which Steve sees as a distinct commercial advantage. Alongside excellent content and competitive prices, it is what helps customers convert.

The retailers have noticed too. “It’s been recognised by our broader customer base—not just consumers, but the major players like B&Q, Screwfix and Toolstation have seen the difference,” Steve says. “Our ability to deliver faster and be more consistent is being recognised.” 

Everything printed by 9am

Inside the warehouse, the Monday rush after a busy weekend is gone. “Linnworks has reduced the pressure on the team,” says Chris. “Now it’s literally at the press of a few buttons, and by 8 o’clock everything’s printed off and done. It’s just the picking. It’s a far more relaxed place now.”

Peak season: Two peaks, one system that’s always ready

With two or three peaks a year, there’s no single month to get ready for. Steve describes the business as “always on”, which means the systems behind it have to be ready all year round.

Thanks to Linnworks, with order processing, courier selection and label printing automated, a spike in orders doesn’t mean a spike in admin. Orders are processed and labels printed before picking starts, so the team can focus on hitting courier cut-offs, even on the busiest days.

Looking ahead: More products, more channels

Insight Retail’s strategy hasn’t changed: more good selling products on more relevant channels. With Tesco Marketplace live and Checkatrade in progress, the team will keep trying every new marketplace that is appropriate for Home Improvement. Steve has found each new channel reaches a slightly different target customer, with far less sales cannibalisation than expected.

The warehouse may be relatively small, but Steve believes it could handle five to six times today’s volume with more pickers alone. The systems and processes, the ‘foundations’ are already in place.

“The reason we chose Linnworks 18 months ago was fundamentally because it enabled us to scale. Since then, it seems almost every retailer is moving into marketplaces.

Had we not made that decision, we’d really be struggling with the amount of administration.

Thankfully, we’ve chosen the right partner, because we can scale as new and exciting channel opportunities come along.”

Steve Collinge, Managing Director, Insight Retail