First a services site, later his own parts shop. The second grew out of the first — which is the best thing that can happen to a project.
The task
A plumber in London: emergency call-outs, installation, repairs. The market is crowded and the decision to call is made in minutes — often from a phone, often at a bad moment.
Later a second task appeared: sell parts directly instead of sending the customer to the shop round the corner.
The approach
The services site is built around urgency. When a pipe is leaking, nobody wants the company history. They want a phone number, a coverage area, and confidence that someone will turn up.
The shop was added as a separate layer, not by rebuilding the site. Services and goods are different buying journeys, and folding them into one page spoils both.
One infrastructure for two directions: shared domain, shared admin, shared handling of enquiries. The owner does not have to run two households.
The result
The tradesman got both a stream of service enquiries and a sales channel for parts, on one foundation.
The shop is the more interesting half: this is the case where a client came back for a second piece not because he was sold one, but because the first worked.