Helping Anchor Group Attract Bigger Customers
Helping Anchor Magnets evolve from an online retailer into a lead-generating manufacturer
From retail signs and supermarket shelf displays to specialist industrial applications, Anchor Group’s products turn up in all sorts of places.
Anchor Magnets, now part of Anchor Group, has been manufacturing magnetic products in Sheffield since 1984.
When Anchor Magnets approached Dock, we held workshops to understand its growth ambitions and developed a Shopify website designed to generate both online sales and larger commercial enquiries.
Between 2021 and 2025, sales from customers who first found Anchor Magnets online nearly doubled. The biggest jump came in 2024, while Dock’s SEO support was running. Those sales grew 60% that year, and online shop sales grew 26%.
Things were going well.
A Different Kind of Attraction
Our work expanded into paid advertising and further website development. Over time, our conversations centred on how the website could win the larger commercial orders Anchor Magnets had always wanted.
Selling a small pack of office magnets online is one thing. Packaging, shipping and fulfilling those orders profitably is another.
For a manufacturer capable of fulfilling substantial orders, the bigger opportunities lay elsewhere.
Anchor Magnets wasn't competing with businesses selling small quantities of magnets online. It was competing with manufacturers supplying customised industrial products.
Yet its website still looked too much like an online shop.
Anchoring the Website
Rather than recommend an expensive rebuild, we looked at how Anchor Magnets could get more from its existing Shopify website.
Our idea was to prioritise lead generation while keeping the online shop for customers who wanted to buy products directly. That meant significantly reshaping the existing website to focus on what Anchor Magnets could offer larger commercial customers.
We gave greater prominence to its wholesale and manufacturing capabilities, introduced clearer ways to enquire, and made key product information and downloads easier to access.
We wanted visitors to understand that Anchor Magnets wasn't simply an online retailer. It was an established manufacturer capable of fulfilling substantial orders and developing customised solutions.
We also explained the thinking behind the redesign, showing how the changes would better serve the customers Anchor Magnets wanted to attract.
The result was a website focused primarily on generating larger enquiries, with the shop doing its job in the background.
From June to September 2026, online shop sales rose 28% on the year before. Average order value climbed 24%, and trade prospects in 2026 have already passed three times the 2025 total.
Bringing the Group Together
As the business evolved into Anchor Group, it needed a home for everything it does. We designed and built the Anchor Group website to sit above its specialist brands.
Larger customers and partners now get a clear view of the group’s full capabilities. Each brand then has room to speak to its own audience.
Finding New Fields
Our work has never been limited to websites and digital marketing. Over the years, we’ve built a deep understanding of the group’s products, capabilities and ambitions.
That knowledge helps us contribute ideas and spot opportunities. One example is https://www.radiation-shielding.co.uk/, a specialist radiation shielding brand within Anchor Group.
Alongside building the Anchor Shielding website, we researched search demand to identify potential markets. We then brainstormed practical ways to reach prospective customers.
We suggested approaching universities and science departments with access to research and development funding. We also identified local organisations as a realistic starting point.
The Anchor Shielding team has since been pursuing new connections and attending events to raise awareness of the technology.
Getting Behind the Business
Dock has worked with Anchor Magnets through changes in name, structure, budgets, products and priorities.
Anchor Group knows its products. We understand marketing, the wider marketplace and how to engage potential customers.
And the more we understand what our clients do, the more we get behind what they're trying to achieve. It's more enjoyable for us, and we're always looking for ways to help them get a greater return.
Whether that's recommending changes to a website, identifying new markets or suggesting opportunities beyond our immediate brief, if it's good for their business, it's worth doing.
When our clients see the value in our advice, they trust us to keep giving it.
You could call it mutual attraction.
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