WorldStores Steps to the Top in the UK

Established in 2008 by Richard Tucker and Joe Murray, WorldStores is arguably the most extensive online garden and home products retailer in the United Kingdom. They conceived the idea to rescue thousands of mattresses, beds and sofas from fading away in disuse across warehouses in the UK. Each week there’re thousands of shoppers on their platform, with 2016 expected to be the year the giant online retailer registers over 45 million annual visitors to their website. The online retailer is backed by such top investors as Serena Capital, Advent Ventures and Balderton Capital. The goal is to provide every potential customer with the best hassle-free, simple and compelling shopping experience possible.

Many choices are provided under a single roof that contrasts with other competitors, the balance tilting towards WorldStores. Browsing the site, you’ll find many things a home needs, from mattresses, beds, sofas, sheds, DIY, rugs, clocks and bookcases. The store also offers a particular day or next-day delivery on many furniture items on their site.

Top products under one roof

WorldStores claims to have the largest European product catalogue for gardens and homes. They offer homewares and furniture in all colours, sizes and styles from over 800 prominent brands. Everyone deserves a choice, and the site has thousands of trend garden and home products added to allow customers to choose what they need.

Value, delivery and security

As a result of intelligent sourcing and the gigantic size of the company, all furniture products are offered at the most competitive prices. WorldStores claims to continually negotiate with suppliers for bigger savings, particularly to offer products in their repeated flash sales. The online retail claims to have all transactions as secure as possible, including their garden and home sites, where payment gateways are encrypted through MasterCard SecureCode or Visa Verified. The online store’s seven-day refund policy supports each homeware and furniture product.

Delivery is essential in any buyer’s mind. WorldStores claims to offer customers a rapid day or next-day delivery choice for thousands and thousands of furniture and homeware products. From as early as 2013, WorldStores was offering customers many delivery choices for large items to any location within the UK.

WorldStores investments

WorldStores has been working hard to be the top UK consumer destination for garden and home products. Three years after its establishment the home items retailer won an £8.5m investment from Advent Venture Partners and Balderton Capital, an existing partner at the time. The provided funds were to offer the company a chance to extend to other new categories while improving services offered and delivery of goods. With significant growth, the investments were seen as a chance for the company to record its highest sales. In 2011, WorldStores operated 77 unique web stores selling over 175K products.

WorldStores is not furniture salesmanship but a complex and effective company with web search experts operating under a unique business model. By connecting diverse small websites such as Trampoline World, Dog Kennels World, to Bedroom World, the online retailer could offer over 300,000 household goods and furniture by 2012. With diverse choices among various products and rapid delivery, the company grew its turnover from nothing to about £60 million between 2008 and 2012.

In 2015, WorldStores raised about £25 million from Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking. At the time, the Twickenham-based company had over 350 members of staff and an annual turnover of over £100 million. The funds were explicitly introduced to develop an in-house fulfilment fleet to make next-day delivery even more effective, especially for large items in the furniture category to over 90 per cent of the population in the UK all days of the week. The investment also aimed to enhance its technology, product offering and Casafina membership scheme. Sachs joined existing investors such as Serena Capital, Advent Ventures and Balderton Capital-also participants in the fundraising.

Back in 2013, WorldStores had raised £10 million in Series C led by Advent Venture Partners, Balderton Capital and Serena Capital, who had participated in the funding round. The funding was meant to help the retailer expand its range of products and supplier network, which stood at 500,000 supplier lines at the time. As a result, WorldStores raised a total of £21 million. In 2012, WorldStores reported a sales growth of 50 percent and targeted £75 million in 2013.

In 2014 WorldStores was also expanding its investment portfolio after purchasing Kiddicare for an unrevealed amount. At the time WorldStores had a turnover of £80 million. They sold over 600,000 items from over 1600 suppliers offering different types of brands, including homewares and furniture at WorldStores.co.uk, discount design modern specialist at Modern.co.uk and Casafina.com’s private homewares sales site.

Kiddicare has been able to create a niche for itself not only with suppliers but also with customers. WorldStores intended to develop this further by making the most of the new acquisition’s customer base with cross-marketing potential; Kiddicare was also focusing on the home, just like the giant UK furniture online retailer. Kiddicare’s nursery market penetration is seen as one of the reasons why it appeared attractive to WorldStores. Initially, Kiddicare had been bought by Endless, an equity firm, around July 15th 2014, for only £2 million.

Fuelled by growth

The continued round of investment by the different partners was due to the impressive accomplishments of the company in the shortest time it had been in operation and its ability to become the leader in online homewares and furniture purchases across the UK in record time.

Supporting its growth will make WorldStores a unique online retail company and leader in product quality and depth by offering the best customer experience. The company remains robust and widespread, mainly due to its in-house fleet that can deliver the largest amount of furniture bought by a customer within the UK on the next day or day of choice.