Chewbz, a retro sweets shop, was launched in October 2008 by Emily Denyer using Actinic ecommerce software.

Emily started her business with only £5,000, the majority of which went on stock and photography. At launch the site saw 2,500 unique visits (UV) per month without breaking the bank on Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Three years later it averages 28,000 UVs, although during promotional months this climbs to 100,000 per month.

The site achieves an impressive conversion rate,taking over 2,500 orders per month for its selection of 100 classic sweets. Ranging in price from £2.50 to £42.95, these include favourites from the 70s, 80s and 90s like Black Jacks, Fizzers, gobstoppers, shrimps, Fruit Salads, fried eggs, and more.

Chewbz now employs eight members of staff although this increases by about 300% around busy trading periods like Christmas.

The sweet smell of success

Emily explains what has contributed to Chewbz's success:

"We blog, write articles, use email marketing and various social media platforms for promotion. One member of the team works specifically in online marketing. Through channels such as Facebook and Twitter it allows us to speak to Chewbz fans. They see what happens behind the scenes and they feel part of the business which is important as Chewbz is a fun brand. Social media works very well for us as it fits our demographic well and complements our own approach to communication.

"We run weekly competitions to encourage interaction with customers and we reward customers for sharing stories, anecdotes and photos with us. We also place customer service ahead of everything to ensure that regardless of the stage in the order process a Chewbz customer feels part of a very special group.

"Ecommerce offers the ability to not only sell online, but to learn from our customers and further improve our offering."

Emily explains the challenges she has faced and the opportunities for the future:

"Fulfilment, particularly at peak times, is difficult just because of the sheer volume of orders we were taking, but is a nice problem to have.

"There is always the risk of fraud with an online business. We use Actinic Payments including The 3rd Man fraud protection which has helped us combat fraudulent transactions over the busy trading periods, saving us many thousands of pounds in charge-backs.

"As the team grows we will have more time to implement some of the crazy ideas that we had at the start. Likewise, with a growing customer database, high levels of interaction online and a very sharp and well performing site we want to continue with some of the viral ideas we have been joking about for some time!"