How Solent Plastics Cut Cart Abandonment 25% While Automating Complex Shipping

From 100 Daily Calls to Automated Checkout

Solent Plastics is a third-generation, family-run business supplying plastic storage containers to industrial and commercial customers across the UK. With products ranging from small storage bins to 1,000 litre bulk containers, shipping is anything but straightforward.

Since implementing ShipperHQ, Solent Plastics has transformed its manual, enquiry-based process into a fully transactional ecommerce experience with accurate, real-time shipping rates while preserving the personal service the business is known for.

Manual Shipping Quotes Were Slowing Down Orders

Before ShipperHQ, Solent Plastics relied on an enquiry-based process to handle online orders. Customers could browse products and request a delivery quote, but every order required a phone call from the sales team to confirm delivery costs and arrangements.

The challenge was the complexity of the products themselves. Orders often shipped in multiple parcels, products nested inside each other, and larger items required custom delivery arrangements that standard ecommerce checkouts couldn’t calculate accurately.

On busy days, the team manually contacted between 50 and 100 customers to finalise orders. If customers missed the first call, the process often turned into multiple follow ups across phone and email. Over weekends and holidays, these requests stacked up, creating friction for customers and costing the business smaller orders.

Automate Simple Orders. Keep the Personal Service.

Solent Plastics wanted customers to see accurate delivery costs, choose their preferred delivery method, and complete orders without waiting for a phone call. At the same time, the team didn’t want to lose the hands-on service and personal touch that had defined the business for generations.

The goal was not to automate every order. It was to automate the straightforward purchases so the team could spend more time supporting customers with larger or more complex orders that required a more personal approach.

ShipperHQ Built a Checkout for Complex Shipping

With ShipperHQ on Magento, Solent Plastics built a checkout that handles the complexity of its product catalogue without sacrificing the personal service the business is known for. Customers now see accurate shipping rates, real delivery dates, and multiple delivery options at checkout as pricing updates in real time based on cart contents. For oversized or more complex orders, shipping rules automatically switch the checkout flow to a manual quoting process.

How Solent Plastics uses ShipperHQ:

• Dimensional Packing handles products that nest inside each other. With 577 custom box configurations, Solent Plastics built packing logic around how its storage containers actually stack and ship. Products that appear to require separate boxes can often nest inside a single carton, improving rate accuracy and helping warehouse teams manage packaging stock more efficiently.
• Accurate Delivery Dates gives customers more delivery options at checkout. Instead of manually quoting a single next day service over the phone, customers now see multiple delivery options at checkout, including before 10:00 a.m., before noon, and next day delivery. The added visibility immediately increased adoption of before noon delivery services.
• Shipping Rules automate straightforward orders while preserving a hands-on process for larger shipments. With around 60 rules configured, oversized products automatically switch to a call for quote process. By reducing routine phone calls, the sales team can now respond to specialised enquiries within minutes instead of hours.
• Multi-Origin Shipping improves rate accuracy across 40 factory locations. Solent Plastics manages 40 origins across different production sites, allowing delivery methods and costs to reflect where orders actually ship from instead of relying on averaged pricing.
• Click and Collect gives local customers a faster, lower cost fulfilment option. Introduced as part of the ShipperHQ implementation, click and collect quickly became a daily part of operations.

More Orders. Fewer Calls. Better Customer Experience.

Since going live with ShipperHQ, Solent Plastics has seen measurable impact across the business. What started as a solution for automating delivery pricing became the foundation for a better customer experience, helping a small family business operate with the efficiency of a much larger team.

• 8+ hours saved per day by automating quoting for standard orders, with even greater time savings during busy seasonal periods
• 25% reduction in cart abandonment after replacing enquiry-based ordering with real-time delivery pricing, particularly over weekends
• Increased smaller order volume by removing the friction at checkout
• 92% faster response times for oversized and complex orders, reducing wait times from an hour to just five minutes
• A hybrid checkout experience that automates standard orders while preserving hands-on support for larger, more complex shipments