A one-stop-shop for temporary fencing

A ONE-STOP-SHOP

FOR SMART SITE SOLUTIONS

WHEN DEPLOYING BULKY EQUIPMENT SUCH AS TEMPORARY FENCING, EFFICIENT AND TIMELY SITE DELIVERY COULD BE A CHALLENGE FOR SITE MANAGERS. SITE HQ, A NEW E-COMMERCE PLATFORM LAUNCHED BY THE TEAM BEHIND 1300TEMPFENCE, IS MAKING THE PROCESS MORE SEAMLESS THAN EVER.

Imagine you have just placed an order for 250 metres of temporary fencing panels. At 2.4 metres per panel, that’s a total of 101 panels, in addition to 101 clamps and 101 fence feet required to install the panels on site. Now, it’s time for the seller to arrange for the delivery. But when would you know your total shipping cost and estimated time of delivery? Normally, you would be asked to wait for a quote by the seller within the next 24 hours to gather that information based on your location. But, if you are using the newly launched e-commerce platform sitehq.com.au to place your order, it’s only a matter of minutes.

The platform was launched late last year by the team behind 1300TempFence, the Australian company specialising in temporary fence hire and sales across Australia and New Zealand. As Dan Clifton, General Manager – Sales and Marketing at 1300TempFence explains, the idea behind launching Site HQ was to provide a one-stop-shop for all 1300TempFence’s sales products, while offering a seamless e-commerce experience to construction site managers.

“It’s all about creating an end-to-end sales experience, where all the information you need to make a decision is within reach and immediately available,” he says.

“Traditionally, the sales team would receive an order, they would then get on the phone and work things out with the delivery companies to get the best quote for customers. But we wanted to eliminate this step, so that the customer could just order their required fencing equipment and get quoted upfront immediately, with full transparency on the type of vehicle required and the estimated time of delivery,” he explains.

While the shopping experience from the buyers’ perspective is now completely seamless, Clifton says a lot of work has gone into designing the website and linking product information to a database of transport providers.

“The website is designed so that it can calculate the volume and weight of all the products in the customers’ shopping cart. The freight calculator will then determine the type of truck required, and instantaneously it collects and compares quotes from a large database of transport providers throughout the country. The customer is presented with the cheapest freight option, without even realising the complex mechanism that’s happening behind the scenes,” he explains.

RAPID GROWTH The launch of Site HQ means 1300TempFence now has all its sales products, including temporary fencing, portable toilets, water fi lled barriers, site security cameras, shade cloth and star pickets, available through a single platform.

As Bruce Fouracre, one of the cofounders of 1300TempFence points out, the new platform’s launch is in line with the company’s rapid growth in recent years, both on the sales and hire areas of the business.

In November 2021, the company recorded 1.2 million metres of temporary fencing on hire, a 20 per cent rise from May of the same year, when it had just hit a record of one million metres on hire.

The growth 1300TempFence has been experiencing, while partly contributed to their expanding branch network and product portfolio, is also a result of the broader growth in the construction industry, Bruce says.

“If you had told us back in March 2020 that COVID would mean things were going to explode in the construction industry, we

Sitehq.com.au is a new e-commerce platform for temporary fencing launched by 1300TempFence.

would never have predicted that. But we’ve been extremely lucky that construction has been booming, and that we’ve been in the position to grow with it,” he tells Roads & Infrastructure.

To align with this rapid growth, Bruce says the business has been making structural improvements to better cater to its customers. Launching Site HQ is a step in this direction, he says.

“A lot of our customers know that we specialise in temporary fencing, but they are not familiar with the other products we have on offer, including road traffi c barriers, portable toilets and site cameras. Site HQ is all about having a one-stop-shop to make the whole range accessible with a click of a button,” he says.

A COMPANY WITH A VISION The journey 1300TempFence has taken from being a small, Melbourne-based business to becoming a leading Australian hire and sales company in just a little over two decades is impressive.

Brothers Bruce and Martin Fouracre, along with their friend Mark Eaves, started out their business as a small bin hire company in Melbourne back in 1995.

With the onset of legislations that enforced the use of temporary fencing by local councils and insurance companies on construction projects, the team saw an opportunity to venture into temporary fencing, eventually selling the bin hire business in 2007 to focus solely on temporary fencing.

In 2008, Phil Heath joined the business as its fi rst Business Development Manager. Phil’s experience in franchising and distributorship saw the company appoint distributors all over Australia and New Zealand to represent the 1300TempFence name. Eventually, and to meet its appetite for growth, the company bought back many of its franchises and agencies and converted them to company-owned branches.

Since 2017, 1300TempFence has had its own network of branches in all major cities in Australia and Auckland, New Zealand, allowing it to deploy a uniform sale and hire model throughout its branch network. This also means the branches now have a

Using sitehq.com.au, customers can order fencing and arrange for shipping with a click of a button. Bruce Fouracre, Director and Co-Founder of 1300TempFence. bigger supply of equipment for hire at any given time, offering greater scope for the customers and facilitating better inventory management across the conglomerate.

Recently, 1300TempFence introduced a new Traffi c division, with industry expert Pezhman Salahshori joining the team as its fi rst National Category Manager – Traffi c. Bruce says supply of highly engineered steel, concrete and water-fi lled barriers is what this new division oversees.

“Within the sector, 1300TempFence is known as a leader in engineered temporary fencing. Major infrastructure projects like the Level Crossing Removals and the West Gate Tunnel project in Melbourne rely on our fences, which are designed to cater for different wind speeds and other site conditions, ensuring maximum safety,” he says.

As for where the company is positioning to be in the next couple of years, Bruce has high ambitions.

“Our aim now is to double the size of the business within the next fi ve years,” he says.

Looking at the growth the company has experienced since its inception, the objective doesn’t seem far-fetched. Today, Bruce says, the 1300TempFence team is the strongest it has ever been.

“We have in place the best team that we have ever had by a long stretch, so we have the confi dence that it’s an achievable goal,” he says.