Buy It Direct smashed £1m sales record during Black Friday

BLACK FRIDAY is set to replace the Boxing Day and New Year sales for online retailers, according to a Yorkshire entrepreneur who broke the £1m barrier during the day of discounting.
Nick GlynneNick Glynne
Nick Glynne

Nick Glynne, managing director of Buy It Direct, said the big lesson for all retailers this year is that the US shopping phenomenon is here to stay.

For online-only retailers, who are generally on permanent promotion, Black Friday will likely become the equivalent of the annual post-Christmas sales season, said Mr Glynne.

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His company is one of the largest online retailers of consumer electronics and IT goods and services in the UK.

Mr Glynne said he is planning “some serious investment” in his Huddersfield warehouse to cope with the extra demand demonstrated during Black Friday last month.

Mr Glynne told The Yorkshire Post: “We expect revenue this financial year to grow to £110m but more importantly we are heading for a bumper profit year.

“How have we done it? By understanding that fundamentally online is no different from old-fashioned retail - it is all about the right products at the right price presented in the right way.”

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Accounts at Companies House show Buy It Direct had sales of £93m in the year ending March 2013. Pre-tax profits were just £532,000 during the period.

Retailers are in reasonably good shape in the run-up to Christmas, according to industry experts at PwC, who say consumer-facing businesses are benefitting from a brighter economic climate and lower petrol prices.

Amazon UK, which operates a massive distribution centre in Doncaster, introduced Black Friday to the UK in 2010.