How Victoria Health Achieved Rapid E-commerce Growth with BigCommerce

Building a Dynamic Foundation for Natural Health Retail

Victoria Health emerged two decades ago as a pioneer in the United Kingdom’s natural health and beauty space. Throughout its journey, co-founders Gill Sinclair and pharmacist Shabir Daya focused on offering vetted products that deliver authentic benefits, staying true to a strict principle: never sell anything they don’t wholeheartedly believe in. Over twenty years, the business steadily grew to present more than 3,500 items on its website, serving a loyal audience of over 350,000 newsletter subscribers. Yet the original custom site that sustained early traction began to show its age. It rarely needed updates, and the static four-product homepage felt out of step with customer expectations. Victoria Health’s leadership realized that to scale operations and elevate the customer experience, a shift to a modern, scalable e-commerce platform was essential.

Outgrowing In-House Constraints

As web technologies advanced, maintaining an in-house solution became more complex and resource-intensive. Developers spent countless hours troubleshooting performance slowdowns during flash sales, while the rigid content structure limited editorial teams from publishing rich articles, health guides, and live events seamlessly. The static site architecture also posed risks for peak traffic periods, jeopardizing uptime and order processing efficiency. The leadership team knew that a secure, robust SaaS infrastructure would reduce maintenance burdens and free internal talent to focus on creating engaging content and innovative marketing strategies that resonate with health-conscious consumers.

Selecting BigCommerce: A Strategic Turn

After evaluating multiple solutions, Victoria Health chose BigCommerce for its open SaaS platform that balances flexibility, stability, and scalability. The brand trusted BigCommerce to handle high volumes of traffic while offering essential e-commerce capabilities out of the box. Migrating product catalogs, integrating the Drupal content management system, and configuring third-party services like Mailchimp for email marketing and Veeqo for order management became a simplified process. With Braintree processing payments and GraphQL powering custom data queries, the team rapidly rebuilt storefront experiences without sacrificing performance or security.

Empowering Content and Commerce

Beyond product pages, Victoria Health’s site transformed into a content-rich hub, showcasing in-depth articles such as “Health with Shabir” and live sessions like “Trinny and Shabir Live.” The editorial team publishes weekly newsletters, branded “Weekend Read,” sharing health insights, personal reflections, and curated playlists. This dual emphasis on commerce and education has strengthened customer loyalty and driven repeat purchases. The intuitive BigCommerce admin interface allows non-technical staff to update promotions, launch flash sales, and manage memberships directly, cutting development cycles and speeding time to market for new campaigns.

Measurable Growth and Operational Gains

By comparing the first two quarters of 2021 before and after migration, Victoria Health recorded a 9% increase in new customers, a 36% boost in conversion rate, and 8% more orders. Site performance improved dramatically, with faster page load times and higher uptime during peak events. The integration with Global-e is slated to streamline international shipping, opening new markets before the end of 2021. Internally, the IT team reclaimed over 40 hours per month by delegating maintenance tasks to BigCommerce’s platform, redirecting those efforts toward creative initiatives and customer engagement strategies that drive long-term revenue.

Looking Ahead: Scaling for Wellness

With an agile foundation in place, Victoria Health plans to explore advanced personalization features, expand the suite of third-party integrations, and deepen its global footprint from its London headquarters. The leadership team remains confident that BigCommerce will continue to evolve its services, enabling the brand to delight customers with flawless experiences at every touchpoint. This partnership marks a pivotal milestone in Victoria Health’s mission to revolutionize natural health retail by marrying high-performance commerce infrastructure with world-class editorial content.

Optimizing for International Expansion

Recognizing strong demand from continental Europe and North America, the team is deploying Global-e to manage dynamic pricing, localized checkout, and compliant tax calculations. This customization, integrated seamlessly through BigCommerce’s API, reduces manual administration and positions Victoria Health to enter new regions with minimal friction. Combined with in-house expertise in supply chain logistics and customer service, the platform enhancements will equip the brand to scale globally without compromising its artisanal, community-driven ethos.