Verified Energy & Logistics Case Study
Case Study: How Heating Oil Today Captured 400+ Direct Fuel Orders Monthly Without Broker Fees
Hand-Coded Platform · Automated Postal Quote Engine
Landmark Web Design engineered a custom website rebuild, dynamic pricing engine, and regional search architecture for Heating Oil Today, an independent domestic kerosene and commercial gas oil distributor serving rural communities across Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, and Sussex. Replacing a slow, fragmented quoting system that bled margin to national price-comparison brokers, Landmark deployed a custom-coded, blank-canvas WordPress platform featuring a sub-0.5s postcode quote generator, automated volume tiering, emergency delivery scheduling, and local Schema.org logistics graphs. The outcome: an 85% reduction in customer acquisition costs, a 310% increase in direct online fuel bookings, and consistent rank #1 positions across regional off-grid heating queries.
G★★★★★5.0 rated on Google
Client Sector
Domestic Kerosene & Commercial Fuel Logistics
Geographic Catchment
Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire & Sussex
Core Deliverables
Custom WordPress, Dynamic Quoting Engine, Regional SEO, Schema
Primary Metric
400+ Monthly Direct Tanker Deliveries Booked
+310%
Growth in direct, commission-free online fuel orders
0.5s
Instant postcode quote response on mobile networks
Rank #1
Dominant positions for regional heating oil delivery queries
-85%
Reduction in reliance on national comparison broker networks
The Commercial Problem
High broker commissions, volatile wholesale prices, and customer churn on clunky forms
Domestic heating oil is an essential utility for thousands of off-grid rural households across the South East. However, the market is aggressively targeted by national aggregator websites and price-comparison brokers who charge local distributors steep commissions on every litre delivered.
Before partnering with Landmark, Heating Oil Today struggled with three structural operational bottlenecks:
✓ Cumbersome Multi-Step Quoting: The existing website required customers to fill in extensive contact forms before displaying a price per litre. Over 74% of mobile visitors abandoned the page before completing their details, turning instead to instant-quote broker apps.
✓ Margin Erosion via Aggregators: To keep their tanker fleet moving during shoulder seasons, the distributor was forced to purchase orders back from price-comparison middlemen, cutting gross margins down to unsustainably thin levels.
✓ Extreme Seasonal Volatility: The business suffered from dramatic revenue swings between sudden winter delivery spikes and quiet spring months, lacking automated scheduled top-up plans or commercial fuel contract silos to stabilise monthly cash flow.
The Distributor's Primary Objective
"We needed our customers to order directly from us rather than through a broker. If a rural homeowner needs 1,000 litres of kerosene, they should be able to enter their postcode, select their delivery speed, and pay in thirty seconds on their phone."
— Operations Director · Heating Oil Today
The Solution
The engineering roadmap: automated ordering and regional search dominance
Landmark built a bespoke e-commerce and logistics platform engineered to process high-volume fuel orders smoothly:
01
Bespoke Fast-Path Quoting Engine
Edoardo hand-coded a lightweight postcode verification and volume pricing calculator in vanilla JavaScript and custom PHP. Customers enter their delivery postcode and fuel volume (500L to 2,500L+) to receive real-time, transparent per-litre pricing within 0.5 seconds, eliminating drop-offs.
02
Tiered Logistics & Emergency Dispatch Selection
We integrated dynamic delivery tiering directly into the checkout pipeline: standard 5-to-10 day delivery, priority 48-hour routing, and same-day emergency run-out dispatch. This clear choice captures high-urgency winter homeowners willing to pay a premium for expedited service.
03
Regional Depots & Rural County Silos
We established dedicated landing hubs for regional delivery corridors across Surrey, Hampshire, West Sussex, and East Berkshire. Each hub targets hyper-local off-grid catchments (such as the Surrey Hills, South Downs, and rural estate clusters) with clear local logistics metadata.
04
Automated Planned Top-Up Subscriptions
To solve summer revenue dips, we engineered an automated planned top-up system. Homeowners can budget via monthly direct debits and schedule bi-annual automated deliveries, providing the distributor with predictable year-round fleet scheduling.
Technical Data
Before and after: the operational performance transformation
Streamlining the quoting funnel and eliminating platform bloat produced immediate commercial returns:
Operational Benchmark
Legacy Platform (Third-Party Template)
Landmark Custom Rebuild
Mobile PageSpeed Score
34 / 100 (Core Web Vitals Failure)
98 / 100 (All Core Web Vitals Green)
Time to Display Quote
4.2s (multi-page redirect latency)
0.5s (instant client-side calculation)
Quote-to-Order Conversion Rate
1.8% of visitors completed an order
6.4% of visitors completed an order
Direct Monthly Online Tanker Runs
95–110 deliveries
400–450+ exclusive direct deliveries
Broker Commission Expense
£2,200 to £3,500 paid to middlemen monthly
£0 (100% direct client acquisition)
Planned Subscription Retention
0 active monthly subscription accounts
650+ recurring domestic top-up members
The Outcome
Full fleet utilisation, higher fuel margins, and direct customer relationships
Within 180 days of launching the new platform and search architecture, Heating Oil Today transformed their business model:
1. Complete Broker Decoupling
By establishing direct organic search rankings across their regional delivery zones, the company freed itself from third-party price-comparison networks, retaining full gross margins on thousands of litres of fuel delivered every week.
2. Higher Emergency Margin Capture
The dedicated emergency delivery selector generated hundreds of high-margin expedited dispatches during cold snaps, allowing dispatchers to optimise tanker route density while capturing premium delivery fees.
3. Sustainable Off-Peak Cash Flow
The automated planned top-up programme flattened the seasonal feast-and-famine curve, providing reliable recurring monthly subscription income through the spring and summer months.
Are you a regional supplier or distributor losing margins to third-party portals?
Whether you supply bulk fuel, trade materials, plant hire, or specialist logistics across Surrey, Hampshire, and the South East, Landmark builds custom ordering platforms that give you direct ownership of your customer relationships. Speak with Alicia McColl and Edoardo Simeoni-McColl today.
WHAT CLIENTS SAY · GOOGLE REVIEW EXCERPTS
Real businesses. In their own words.
★★★★★ 5.0 out of 5 on Google.
★★★★★
“Alicia is great to deal with, listens to the brief then goes over and above in delivery of your shiny new website. Further, she provides SEO, and continuously updates and positively tinkers with your site to improve its standing.”
★★★★★
“The results have genuinely exceeded my expectations. Since having the new website, I’ve been consecutively fully booked for several months, which has given my business such a huge boost and really helped me put my name out there.”
★★★★★
“Before the new site went live, we were getting around 8 visitors a day. We’re now averaging about 28 a day, which is a 250% increase, and that’s during what is normally our quietest time of year.”
★★★★★
“They took time to research my product & listen to my story to build out my Shopify store. It was only completed 3 weeks ago and our sales have nearly doubled already!”
★★★★★
“Her knowledge of new AI techniques and web design was exactly what I was looking for. Superb communication, fair pricing and a quality service. I have no hesitation in recommending Landmark Web Design and will be using their service again soon.”
★★★★★
“She understood exactly what I needed for my website and brought it to life beautifully. Her pricing is more than fair for the high quality of work she delivers. I’d highly recommend her to anyone looking for a reliable and skilled web developer.”
★★★★★
“We have worked on a number of projects with Landmark, they are very helpful, flexible and problem solvers. They have helped with our website from design to implementation and marketing material from design to printing.”
★★★★★
“I absolutely love working with Alicia at Landmark Web Design! She is professional, incredibly fast, and super good at what she does. I'm consistently impressed with the quality of her work. Highly recommend!”
★★★★★
“We couldn’t be happier with the service and end product of Alicia’s work, she transformed our website which was performing very poorly and now is seeing a rise in engagement and new projects.”
★★★★★
“Alicia is an amazingly knowledgeable and skilled web developer and SEO expert. She totally transformed my website, creating something that was exactly as I pictured it and also SEO friendly!”
★★★★★
“I needed a website for my business and Landmark Web Design offered me a competitive price. They are very professional and completed the website within a few days. I am extremely satisfied and I would highly recommend their services.”
★★★★★
“Very detailed orientated, fast worker, knows her stuff! Love my website and Alicia's input - she even got me to no. 1 on google! Thanks so much”
★★★★★
“From start to finish Landmark have gone above and beyond with their creativity, suggestions and support in our website creation. Alicia is truly is a master in this subject area and a must-have person by your side.”
★★★★★
“We now rank at the very front of web searches, which takes time and work behind the scenes, and has increased our lead flow and sales volume 10 fold, in fact we have had to cut our marketing spend outside of the web page to cope.”