GTSE smooths U.S. expansion with Avalara and BigCommerce
Results
Enabled growth
Increased compliance
Improved processes
Summary
Tax challenges
- Compliance risk
- Tax complexity
- International expansion
Partnership focus:
- Integration with BigCommerce
Results
- Enabled growth
- Increased compliance
- Improved processes
Company overview
Tax type
Sales and use
Integration
Avalara for BigCommerce
GTSE, a U.K.-headquartered company founded in 2014, primarily sells cable ties (also known as zip ties) and tapes as well as other consumable trade supplies — from automotive components to cable management and electrical wiring.
Tax challenges
GTSE started out as a domestic business-to-business website and grew quickly. Soon the company saw an opportunity to address the consumer market through Amazon, which enabled its expansion into other EU markets. “Amazon made it very easy for us to get into new territories, especially before Brexit,” says Tom Armenante, the company’s director of ecommerce. “Amazon shipped stock from the U.K. to the EU for us, making it incredibly easy to sell in Europe.”
In 2020, the company used Amazon’s platform to start selling into the U.S. market. “That grew very, very quickly,” says Tom, “so we decided to build our own U.S. website in 2023.” While Amazon provided basic support for tax calculations on U.S. sales, the new website would introduce a level of complexity that would heavily burden GTSE’s internal resources.
“We have always worked to be lean with resources within the business,” Tom says. “We didn’t want to invest in specific internal resources to become experts in all the complexities of the U.S. tax landscape. From the outset, we knew we would need a partner to simplify U.S. sales tax compliance for us. Our key concern was ongoing monitoring of sales tax thresholds and state-specific requirements.”
Why Avalara?
Having chosen BigCommerce as its ecommerce engine, GTSE had one non-negotiable criterion for its tax compliance software: integration. “Many brands see global expansion as daunting, but brands that are just starting to sell online often think globally from the start,” says Matt Crawford, who manages the global technology partner program at BigCommerce. “We aim to simplify the process for merchants by integrating with tools like Avalara.”
“If you’re on the BigCommerce app store, that’s a really good start,” says Tom. From that short list, Avalara quickly emerged as the best choice for two reasons. “It stood out as the most well integrated one with the best reputation,” says Tom. In addition, one of the GTSE team members was already familiar with it.
“I had used Avalara in previous roles, so I knew its benefits,” says Louise Broadhurst, GTSE’s financial controller. Avalara software automates tax compliance and can help improve accuracy while reducing costs. “Avalara allows us to focus on growing the business.”
Tax challenges
- Compliance risk
- Tax complexity
- International expansion
Partnership focus
- Integration with BigCommerce
Products used
“We are expecting exponential growth in the U.S. in the next 12 months, so it’s safe to say that we’ll need to register in a lot more states. With Avalara, we feel more than ready.”
—Tom Armenante
Director of Ecommerce
“We are expecting exponential growth in the U.S. in the next 12 months, so it’s safe to say that we’ll need to register in a lot more states. With Avalara, we feel more than ready.”
—Tom Armenante
Director of Ecommerce
Results
GTSE rolled out Avalara in November 2023, after a short period of setup and integration. “The whole process was managed really, really smoothly,” Tom recalls. “The process of assigning the correct tax codes to the products was very intuitive… it was all quite streamlined. It took a few weeks, if that.”
Because GTSE took a proactive approach to compliance, the company has avoided being caught in a reactive mode as U.S. sales have grown. “We have successfully spared ourselves the administrative burden of backtracking and re-registering,” says Louise.
“The team at Avalara have been very helpful, supporting everything we’ve needed to do,” says Tom, “but honestly, there hasn’t been a huge amount of interaction with them because the orders have all gone through our system smoothly.”
With the Avalara for BigCommerce integration in place, Tom feels that GTSE’s continued and accelerated growth in the U.S. market will be nearly frictionless, at least from a compliance standpoint.
“We are expecting exponential growth in the U.S. in the next 12 months and are investing heavily in inventory and infrastructure to support that growth, so it’s safe to say that we’ll need to register in a lot more states,” he explains. “We are selling B2B and therefore will also be looking at the monitoring of sales tax exemption certificates as part of our ongoing tax compliance monitoring. With Avalara, we feel more than ready.”
