T H Baker Brings Secure Click & Collect to High-Value Orders With HubBox

About T H Baker

T H Baker has been selling jewellery and watches since 1888 and remains family-owned more than 135 years later. Today, it has 19 stores across the Midlands and southern England, as well as the Jewel Hut and Watch Hut websites.

With diamonds and luxury watches from brands including Omega and Breitling, many of its online orders are worth several hundred pounds or more.

The challenge

Missed home deliveries had become a regular problem for T H Baker. If a customer wasn’t in when their order arrived, they faced a delay while the team often had to arrange another delivery attempt. The higher value of many orders made the issue more pressing. Customers buying expensive jewellery or watches understandably didn’t want their parcel left unattended or with a neighbour.

Nigel Bradley, Head of E-Commerce at T H Baker says: “Missed home deliveries were our main challenge. Many of our jewellery and watch orders are high value, so customers are understandably reluctant to have them left unattended.”

Giving customers the option to collect locally offered another way to receive those orders. They could pick them up when it suited them without having to wait at home for a delivery.

Click & Collect also gave T H Baker another way to connect the ecommerce side of the business with its stores. Customers ordering online could collect in person from a TH Baker store or local pickup option they already knew and trusted.

The solution

T H Baker chose HubBox because it specialised in Click & Collect and local pickup and could work with Royal Mail, an important requirement for the business.

The service was initially funded, which gave the team a chance to see how customers responded before making a longer-term commitment. Once they could see that people were using the service and it worked operationally, they had the confidence to take it further.

There wasn’t much in the way of requirements for T H Baker to get started. HubBox managed the rollout and kept the development work required from its team to a minimum.

The service also fitted into the way stores already worked, so staff could start managing collections without having to change their day-to-day processes significantly.

Nigel says: “Having the first year funded significantly reduced our risk. It let us prove adoption and operational value before committing long term, and gave us the confidence to scale further.”

The results: Customers continue to use Click & Collect as the service has grown

Having the option of pickup clearly highlighted at checkout has helped the business. This is particularly true for higher-value purchases where collecting an order in person can feel more reassuring than having it delivered to an empty home.

T H Baker has also seen fewer missed deliveries, which means less time and money spent dealing with redeliveries and “where is my order?” queries.

The collection process has been straightforward for stores to manage and gives online customers the choice of collecting their order from a T H Baker location or a local pickup point. Bringing customers into stores also supports the retailer’s broader approach to connecting its ecommerce and store businesses.

Nigel says: “HubBox has helped us deliver a more reliable, customer-friendly delivery experience while simplifying how we work internally.”

The recommendation

Asked what he’d tell another retailer considering HubBox, Nigel points to how straightforward it was to introduce.

“I’d recommend HubBox as a low-friction, high-impact way to introduce Click & Collect. It’s easy to integrate and works well operationally. For anyone selling higher-value products it adds a layer of trust and convenience that customers value.”

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