Buy It Direct Group has reached the milestone of 25 years in the retail game, acquiring tech, electricals, furniture and bathroom brands along the way.
Founded in 1999 in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire as Easy Computers by TV documentary-maker-turned-businessman Nick Glynne, the company has since evolved into the Buy It Direct Group.
Appliances Direct, Laptops Direct, Furniture 123, Better Bathrooms, Drones Direct, Serves Direct and Outdoor Living all fall under its umbrella, which founder and chief executive Glynne admits can look “confusing from the outside”.
The group has had its fair share of ups and downs of late. Glynne says it had “23 profitable years” until the post-Covid cost-of-living crisis left the business overstocked and at the mercy of supply chain issues related to the Red Sea shipping crisis.
“But we’re getting into profitable growth again,” he tells Retail Week. “It’s a hard market this year and it’s really hard to get revenue. We’ve focused instead on cutting costs, realigning the business and making sure that strategies are in place.
“In a way the past two years have been very healthy. Although they were miserable from a profit and loss point of view, they’ve really helped us focus on where we need to make improvements.”
In its most recent results to March 2023, total sales dropped 15% to £354m and pre-tax losses widened to £13m from £10.5m the previous year.
However, Retail Navigator by Lumina Intelligence forecasts that the business will return to growth in the next year or two, with sales predicted to get close to £370m by FY2027.
Unique offering
Launching as the dotcom era began to boom, the group took advantage of a completely new market with customers who were computer novices.
Tech-savvy staff were well trained on a once niche topic, answering questions such as ‘What is the purpose of WiFi?’, but Glynne had a feeling that tech and IT would eventually be “commoditised”.
He says that the business was making a 20% margin which then quickly dropped to 10%, and he knew he had to make a change.
“My role over the past 20 years has been to refine new categories, either through buying businesses or through organically creating and developing the category. Categories where customers needed help in making decisions that we could provide value in terms of product, support and assistance.”
He adds that product differentiation is important as he “doesn’t want to sell the same stuff as everyone else”, but services are just as vital.
Customer satisfaction is usually at the top of retailers’ list of priorities and Glynne says this has to go beyond just a working website. “Are you constantly providing helpful solutions for customers? Do you deliver correctly? Do you install products correctly?” he says.
“If you’re unhappy with something you bought from Amazon, they just ask you to send it back. We know you don’t want to send your bathroom back, you don’t want to send your barbecue back because you just assembled it – you need support.”
Glynne adds that the likes of AO and Victorian Plumbing spend “significant money” on brand building whereas Buy It Direct doesn’t. He admits that part of the reason is because he hasn’t “had the cash to do it”, but he believes loyalty through services and word of mouth is what will keep customers coming back.
Disrupting the market
Part of Buy It Direct’s strengths is the fact it places itself firmly in the value retail sector, reaching a broader range of shoppers. Its website states: “Instead of charging an arm and a leg for the same products as our competitors, let’s cost less, sell more and deliver greater value.”
Glynne says there is no shame in value retailing, adding that the group is “not John Lewis” and has to be “great value all the time”.
Its diverse products and services offering also gives the group an edge on its competitors since different parts of the business perform well at different times of the year.
Buy It Direct doesn’t wait for Black Friday or Christmas to drive sales; it ensures it has a product set equipped for all times of the year. Glynne explains: “In the middle of summer, IT does badly but barbecues and outdoor furniture performs really well.”
While he emphasises his love for growth, new categories and being a disruptor, Glynne assures us that this year he is holding back. “Hopefully we’re one of the companies that end up buying the weaker guys or taking over their business,” he says.
“This year is about consolidation and treading carefully. But I’ve got three very, very strong business ideas for new categories, either through acquisition or organically developed.”
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