Lighting Stores ; Online Retailers ; Other Retail Trade ; Photofinishing Stores
established in 2004, this business, a specialist supplier of lighting and phototherapy based products for consumer health and wellness, has grown to become one of the leading suppliers of consumer products in its highly specialist field. Importing directly in volume from overseas manufacturers and therefore benefiting from significant margins, the business retails direct to end-users and more recently to some retailers in other european countries. Having successfully traded for nearly six years, the business can now boast an expanding database of over 30,000 satisfied customers split mainly between the uk and germany. Over 90% of sales are direct to end-users via the internet. Product range: the company is focused primarily on “light based” health and wellness products. These include the following important ranges: 1. Cfl (compact fluorescent lamp) based replacement bulbs offering full spectrum (daylight) lighting. These are popular with consumers as they provide a much higher quality light for reading, working, hobbies and any tasks needing good colour rendition and clarity. 2. Desktop lamps also providing full spectrum dimmable lighting for home and office use and for bright-light therapy in winter. 3. High quality led based halogen replacement bulbs and daylight spectrum fluorescent tubes. 4. Uvb based devices for phototherapy treatment of psoriasis, vitiligo and atopic eczema. 5. Dawn simulator radio alarm clocks. 6. Infra red lamps for muscle treatment. 7. Waxbaths for arthritis. 8. Red light based coldsore treatment. 9. Blue & red lights for acne. 10. Ioniser based bulbs and desklamps for air purification. Transaction values and volumes: the products are a suitable size for shipping via standard couriers. In 2009 the company transacted approximately 13,000 orders with an average order value of £55. The business is somewhat seasonal and busier from september to march each year. So whilst this equates to a daily average of 40+ orders per day this can peak at 250+ per day in december. Key strengths: the “health & wellness” sector is proving to be an area of the economy that is still expanding and resistant to recessionary pressures. Many of the products sold appeal to an ageing population, whilst others are still relatively unknown by the general population. This business is one of the leading suppliers in its specialist field. Turnover has expanded well throughout its six years or so of operation to date – reaching approximately £700,000 for the 2009 financial year. 90% of the products sold carry the company brand name. This allows high margins to be retained whilst limiting competition, and allows the brand name to be expanded in future. The company has concentrated in the past 12 months on de-listing other named brands, to strengthen its own branded offerings. The business has a truly international customer base and is eminently re-locatable. Using the internet, modern voice-over-internet protocol (voip) telephone systems and reliable international couriers the business retails its products throughout europe from one location – which could be anywhere. Key opportunities: there is an outstanding opportunity to build on the existing activity levels and customer base of this business. With a strong demand for the products of this business, a new owner contributing fresh ideas, motivation, enthusiasm and additional resources, will have every advantage of building on an excellent platform. The business may benefit from relocation (or part relocation) to the uk as this would speed up delivery and lower costs to a region which represents a significant proportion of turnover. To date the business has not invested heavily in marketing and advertising and there can be no doubt that magazine advertising, trade shows and pr would all accelerate the growth of the business. The business currently has agreements in place with trade resellers in some european countries - slovakia and finland, for example. With untapped wholesale demand for the branded products from retailers in other european countries there is certainly scope to expand theses arrangements further. Expansion into retail outlets also seems an obvious route for greater trade sales and the company will also benefit in future from a range of new medical products being designed by the current owner. It: included within the sale is all the equipment – both hardware and software to run the business immediately after transfer. This includes several high specification apple imac desktop computers currently used in the day-to-day operation of the business as well as all licences for the website and despatch software. The main software used is from “jshop server is a high-end shopping cart e-commerce system written in php and utilising mysql databases. It has advanced features such as stock control, customer accounts, gift certificate facilities, advanced pricing options, in-built logs and reporting, search engine detection and search engine safe links, full tax and shipping, and in-built order management system. The jshop server is configured, managed and maintained through a state-of-the-art web-based interface that behaves more like an application than a web system.” the company owns a “developer licence” for jshop server which is also included within the asking price. The company also utilises “rtd” warehouse software from which allows all orders to be picked and processed directly to a range of different couriers including ups, royal mail, dhl, citylink, parcelforce and others. The software runs on a leased (and backed up) dedicated and managed uk based server from dedipower as follows: description: cpu: 2 x intel xeon quad core 2.0ghz standard memory: 4gb ram storage: 2 x 160gb sata hdd raid1 bandwidth: 250gb outbound transfer per month os: redhat linux enterprise service level agreement: business class sla 99.9% guaranteed uptime managed firewall & managed backups: cisco asa5505 (50 ips) & 160gb backup services are provided by network attached storage. Business server backups include 7 days of backups (daily) 1 x control panel: cpanel unlimited domains (via a 12 month contract, paying monthly)
