TikTok connection leads to business boost for rural antiques dealership

A popular independent antiques dealership in Mydroilyn near Aberaeron in Ceredigion has turned to social media to help improve its customer service thanks to Openreach’s Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband.

Husband and wife Jonathon and Yvonne Holder have been running ‘Welsh Vernacular Antiques’, from their rural Ceredigion village for nearly 25 years. 

Split between two sites the online business is run from their home in Mydroilyn while their period showroom, which holds the country’s largest collections of Welsh antiques and quality country furniture, can be found 10 miles away in Pontsaeson near Llanon. 

Given their rural location the majority of  business – until recently – was conducted on their website. With next to no broadband connectivity in the village the work of uploading images of new furniture on to their website was both time consuming and labour intensive. Uploading anything longer than short 5 second videos was out of the question.

But all that changed with the arrival of Openreach’s Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband to the village. Jonathon explains:

“As a rural business that sells high end Welsh furniture our customers can be anywhere in the world.”

“Footfall to our showroom – given our location – isn’t particularly high compared to our competitors in London so we rely heavily on our reputation and online presence.

“Some of our items can go for as high as £20,000 so our customers that aren’t able to visit our showroom need as much information as possible to make an informed decision. So that can mean several high-resolution pictures, video clips and live-streaming – something that was very difficult or impossible to do without ultrafast broadband.”

“Since getting Full Fibre we’ve seen a huge shift in how we do business with the majority now being done using our social media channels rather than visits to the showroom or even our website.

“We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok and upload new content to our 20,000 followers on a daily basis. This new connectivity allows us to communicate with our customers instantaneously – something that’s vital in e-commerce.

“For rural businesses like ours to survive and thrive having fast reliable broadband isn’t a nice to have. It’s crucial.”

Nearly 40% of people and businesses across Ceredigion can upgrade to Ultrafast Full Fibre today. While nearly half of those properties have upgraded thousands are still missing out on taking advantage of faster, more reliable broadband services.

Following a £4 million pound local investment, Openreach engineers have been busy building the network to make ultrafast speeds of up to one gigabit per second (Gbps) available across the county.

People living and working in the city and its surrounding areas , are being encouraged to find out more about faster broadband – as the latest figures show that Openreach‘s Full Fibre network – used by the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Zen – is now available to more than 14,000 premises while a little less than half have yet to take up the service.

As well as being faster, Full Fibre broadband provides more reliable, resilient and future-proof connectivity, with fewer faults; more predictable, consistent speeds; and enough capacity to use multiple devices at once.  

Elsewhere, local Openreach engineers have been hard at work across Wales where more than 660,000 households and businesses can already place an order for the new technology.

Martin Williams, Openreach’s regional director for Wales, said: “Research shows that this new network will give businesses an edge and provide families and home-workers future-proof connectivity, no matter what life throws at us next.

“Our investment across Ceredigion and the rest of Wales continues at pace, and we’re determined to deliver a great service which helps communities thrive and supports people to work from home easily, keep in touch with their loved ones and build connections and opportunities.

“Gigabit-capable broadband can have a huge impact on people’s lives and it’s great for the economy but upgrades aren’t automatic. People need to place an order with their chosen providers to get connected and we’ll do the rest. Our network offers the widest choice of providers which means people have lots of choice and can get a great deal.”

Packages from a wide range of broadband providers are increasingly competitively priced, meaning people may not end up paying much more per month than their current bill, for a much-improved service.

Once somebody places and order with a service provider, an Openreach engineer will visit on an agreed day. They’ll run a new fibre optical cable from underground or a nearby pole to a small junction box on the outside wall of the premises. A smaller cable goes through the outside wall to an inside unit – which needs to be near a double electric socket – and before they leave, the engineer will test the connection to make sure it’s up and running.

Openreach has announced plans to invest in Full Fibre broadband for the majority of premises across Wales.  It’s part of the company’s plans to reach 25 million UK homes and businesses. This short video explains what full fibre technology is and you can find out more about our build programme here.

With a workforce of around 2,300 in Wales, Openreach already employs the nation’s largest team of telecoms engineers and professionals.

Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) highlighted the clear economic benefits of connecting everyone in Wales to full fibre. It estimated this would create a £2 billion boost to the Welsh economy.