“This is fantastic opportunity for me to continue to grow the DVD and Blu-ray categories across our portfolio, but lead all the entertainment product categories to deliver better processes and closer relationships with our supplier base, which will benefit business and most importantly our millions of customers” commented, Markus Bhatia.

The Hut Group, now reporting to OCC has seen its market share in DVD & Blu-ray increase by over 150% in the last 6 months,

Matt Moulding, The Hut Group’s CEO said, “Markus is incredibly well respected in the entertainment industry and has delivered considerable incremental growth with DVD & Blu-ray since joining us, he’s an asset and I’m pleased to have him in our senior team, delivering the same expansion in Games, Music & Books”

About The Hut Group

Based in Northwich, Cheshire, The Hut Group was established in 2004 by entrepreneurs, Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore. The Hut Group delivers a white label ecommerce service for a number of major retailers including ASDA, Woolworths, Argos and WHSmith.

The Hut Group also has two successful etail brands within its portfolio. TheHut.com is a multi-channel retailer offering a variety of home entertainment and lifestyle products, such as DVDs, Blu-ray and CDs, as well as lingerie, cosmetics and sports and leisure equipment.

High street brand Zavvi was acquired by The Hut Group in March 2009 and is now a thriving online-only retailer. The refreshed Zavvi website offers customers a wider choice of entertainment products, with free delivery.

A Sunday Times Tech Track company, The Hut Group is the fastest growing technology company in the North West and is ranked 8th in the UK.

For further information, please visit www.thehut.com, www.zavvi.co.uk or www.thehutgroup.com or follow us on Twitter: @thehut_com and @zavvionline

Stats revealed in a poll by the online retailer showed that more than 81 per cent of Brits are planning to do their Christmas shopping online this year and 71 per cent of people still think online shopping is the best way to buy Christmas presents.

The online retailer expects to ship over 5 million parcels in December representing over 6000 tonnes of goods that will include everything from DVDs to video games, CDs to Books & Electronics to Underwear.

Sales figures from Monday 23rd November show that online shopping for the festive season has already started with The Hut Group recording their busiest day ever, with 1600 orders a minute coming through at the peak time of 8-9pm.

The Hut Group, who ranked number 1 in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 of the UK’s fastest growing companies, has two thriving retail brands, The Hut.com and Zavvi.com and an ecommerce solution for major retailers including ASDA, Woolworths, Argos, Tesco and WHSmith.

The Group has seen a sales increase of over 400% year on year from £25m in 2008 with innovative trading techniques and an aggressive customer acquisition strategy through new routes to consumers like its ‘Ebay Outlet’ which has seen over 20,000 orders in its first 3 weeks of trading and is well on track meet its turnover targets

“Monday’s are always the busiest day for online shopping, and this will be a record breaking period for The Hut Group” comments Richard Chapple, Commercial Director. “In the recession, when every penny counts, The Hut Group’s sites will be offering customers more value and better prices on the must have products than ever before.”

For further enquiries regarding The Hut Group or any of our sites please contact us here or alternatively, phone us on 01606 338197.

About The Hut Group

Based in Northwich Cheshire, The Hut Group is a successful white label ecommerce provider founded in 2004 by Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore.

With two thriving retail brands, The Hut.com and Zavvi.com and a white label ecommerce service for major retailers including ASDA, Woolworths, Argos, Tesco and WHSmith, The Hut Group has emerged as an online retail success story having averaged 189 per cent growth over the last 4 years.

In October 2009, The Hut Group was ranked number one in The Sunday Times ‘Tech Track 100’, making it the fastest-growling private technology firm in the UK.

For further information, please visit www.thehut.com, or www.thehutgroup.com

Ecommerce provider, The Hut Group, has ranked Number 1 in this year’s ‘Sunday Times Tech Track 100’. Appearing for the third consecutive year, The Hut Group has seen sales grow 189 per cent a year from £997,000 in 2005 to £24m in 2008.

The list ranks the fastest-growing private technology companies in Britain by sales growth over a three-year period. Rising from eighth position in 2008, The Hut Group provides ecommerce solutions for some of the UK’s leading retailers including Asda, Argos, LoveFilm, Woolworths and WH Smith. The Hut Group also runs its own stores, TheHut.com, a broad market place, which offers a range of lifestyle products such as clothing, beauty, entertainment and electronics. It also acquired high street brand, zavvi.co.uk in March this year and transformed it into a thriving leisure and entertainment focused online-only retailer.

Matthew Moulding, CEO at The Hut Group (THG), comments, “To be ranked 1 is a incredible achievement. Given the tough economic climate, the huge growth and subsequent listing in the Tech Track is especially rewarding and we’re thrilled we have been able to buck the downward trend.

“The company has grown rapidly and thanks to the demand for competitively priced entertainment products and our new product categories. There is a real opportunity for us to drive the business forward; we’ll continue improve the overall offer and experience to our customers which is our overall goal, this will deliver increased in market share in all the areas we operate in. The recent raft of management appointments within the senior team means we are well on the way to deliver our ambitious target of £90m turnover in 2009 and driving the business to the next stage in its exciting journey,” continues Moulding.

In the coming months, the group will continue to expand the range of products available, offering customers increased choice and functionality, while delivering the best price and value; as well as launching new sites with 4 major retailers in the next 4 weeks, making them the best choice for consumers during peak Christmas trading in 2009.

About The Hut Group

Based in Northwich, Cheshire, The Hut Group (THG) was established in 2004 by entrepreneurs, Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore. The Hut Group delivers a white label ecommerce service for a number of major retailers including ASDA, Woolworths, Argos and WHSmith.

The Hut Group also has two successful etail brands within its portfolio. TheHut.com is a multi-channel retailer offering a variety of home entertainment and lifestyle products, such as DVDs, Blu-ray and CDs, as well as lingerie, cosmetics and sports and leisure equipment.

High street brand Zavvi was acquired by The Hut Group in March 2009 and is now a thriving online-only retailer. The refreshed zavvi website offers customers a wider choice of entertainment products, with free delivery.

A Sunday Times Tech Track company, The Hut Group is the fastest growing technology company and is ranked 1 in the UK.

For further information, please visit www.TheHut.com, www.zavvi.co.uk or www.thehutgroup.com.

Follow us on Twitter: @thehut_com and @zavvionline

Chapple will work across TheHut.com and Zavvi to devise a robust communication strategy that will position the brands as major players in multi-channel retail and entertainment in 2009 and beyond. Chapple will also expand the white label side of the business, The Hut Group, on an international level, as the company looks to push its expertise in managing ecommerce sites to retailers outside of the UK.

With a wealth of experience in the retail, Chapple joins The Hut Group from Play.com, where he spent four years managing the marketing team. Prior to this, Chapple built up significant expertise in bricks and mortar retail, spending four years marketing Carpetright’s European expansion.

Matthew Moulding, CEO at The Hut Group, comments, “Richard has a huge amount of knowledge in retail and marketing, which makes him perfect for the role at The Hut Group. As we look to increase our product ranges and take all of our brands to the next level, I am confident that with Richard’s presence in the team we can achieve our goals.”

Chapple adds, “The Hut Group has the kudos of clients that are household names, as well as two retail sites that will benefit from my expertise to grow into the leading entertainment and leisure retail brands in the UK and beyond. As the group already has great systems, processes and staff in place, we can implement new site functionality like ‘customer wish lists’ and ‘loyalty and referral schemes’, new products from consumer electronics, gifts and toys to clothing, all with much improved delivery times. We will then inform the millions of consumers about our enhanced service, product offering and choice before and during Christmas 2009 with a multi-million pound marketing campaign. There is real opportunity for this business to grow and I am hugely excited to be involved at a senior level.”

About The Hut Group

Based in Northwich, Cheshire, The Hut Group was established in 2004 by entrepreneurs, Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore. The Hut Group delivers a white label ecommerce service for a number of major retailers including ASDA, Woolworths, Argos and WHSmith.

The Hut Group also has two successful etail brands within its portfolio. TheHut.com is a multi-channel retailer offering a variety of home entertainment and lifestyle products, such as DVDs, Blu-ray and CDs, as well as lingerie, cosmetics and sports and leisure equipment.

High street brand Zavvi was acquired by The Hut Group in March 2009 and is now a thriving online-only retailer. The refreshed Zavvi website offers customers a wider choice of entertainment products, with free delivery.

A Sunday Times Tech Track company, The Hut Group is the fastest growing technology company in the North West and is ranked 8th in the UK.

For further information, please visit www.thehut.com, www.zavvi.co.uk or www.thehutgroup.com or follow us on Twitter: @thehut_com and @zavvionline

The Woolworths brand*, bought by Shop Direct owners the Barclay brothers earlier this year, will not re-open its stores and has instead embraced an online business strategy. Woolworths’ online-only product range moves the business away from general merchandise and homeware to concentrate on entertainment products, children’s clothes and gifts, and its Ladybird clothing range.

Matthew Moulding, CEO at The Hut Group, says, “Woolworths is an established brand that is recognised throughout Britain. This year marks Woolworths’ 100th year in the retail industry, so we’re proud to be part of the brand’s revival and enable the business to offer the products that it is famous for. Our white label service will ensure Woolworths provides an excellent customer experience, from searching and browsing for products to the physical delivery of goods.”

The Hut Group offers retailers an end-to-end ecommerce solution that delivers a fully managed service with the technology to provide a reliable transactional website for any online retail operation.

* Woolworths is a trading name of Shop Direct Home Shopping Limited. The Woolworths and Ladybird brands run alongside Shop Direct Group’s other brands, including Littlewoods, Empire and Great Universal.

“TheHut.com is a rapidly expanding organization and is always looking for ways to reward success,” said Dominic Starkey, the company’s Head of E-Commerce. “The new car is one of the ways in which star performers within the business can benefit from our growth and be repaid for their support and effort.”

Mr Starkey said that the vehicles would also act, “as part of a wider drive to be as green and ethical as possible,” and enable the company to benefit from, “the fantastic opportunity on-car branding affords us”. The iQs are being supplied in white, sign-written with the company’s web address, www.thehut.com.

“We chose the iQ because it is leader in its class from an environment angle, has a great spec and is one of the flagship products from a forward-thinking company,” added Starkey.

Steve Jolley, of the supplying RRG Group which has 19 centres in the North-West, said, “We took one of the first two iQs in the country up to Northwich to show TheHut.com last December. We followed that with around 30 test drives in January.”

“The staff all love the cars,” continues TheHut.com’s Starkey. “The spec is impressive, and though it looks like a small car from the outside, once inside it feels and drives like a much larger car, which is testament to its comfort and design.”

The Toyota iQ is powered by a 1.0 VVT-i 68bhp petrol engine, which provides fuel economy of 65.7mpg and emissions of just 99g/km.

The car exemplifies the new Toyota Optimal Drive concept of powertrain engineering and design, which brings more power better economy and lower emissions.

The Hut’s iQs are being supplied on two-year contracts, with half of the first batch through Toyota Finance and the remainder through Arval.

In partnership with The Hut, the site will enable Argos to enter a popular market and offer a large choice of CDs and DVDs to customers shopping online. The new website offers 125,000 titles of both chart and back catalogue lines all with free delivery.

Dominic Starkey, Head of ecommerce at The Hut Group, adds, “We are delighted to be working with Argos, one of the country’s most respected brands and retailers. We are particularly excited about the opportunities for helping the company increase its Entertainment products range.”

Karen Bray, marketing director for Argos said: “Online shopping has become part of everyday life for many of our customers and the entertainment site will offer our customers an increased product choice at a competitive price. The Hut is a good partner for Argos and brings their expertise in the entertainment field to the site”.

The new website launched on 3rd April and will be promoted from the popular, award winning* www.argos.co.uk website homepage. In addition, the Argos database and weekly ‘Gos’ email will be used to raise awareness of the new entertainment offer and targeted promotions to customers.

*Winner of 2009 Retail Week ‘Online Retailer of the Year’.

The Hut Group provides white label website services including ecommerce, web hosting and procurement to leading retailers such as Asda, DSGi Group and LOVEFiLM. Retail solutions developed by the The Hut’s in-house technical team include basic website delivery to full service merchandising, maintenance and marketing.

Matthew Moulding, CEO at The Hut Group, comments, “We are absolutely delighted to have won the North West and North Wales final of the Entrepreneur Challenge and look forward to the national final in London. We are extremely committed to providing retailers with high quality ecommerce and website solutions, and the funding will enable us to dedicate more resource to this area of our business. I am truly excited about the growth opportunities ahead for The Hut and look forward to working with our team of technical experts to provide large retailers with the necessary online requirements.”

The Hut Group will now go forward to the national final of the competition in London, which takes place in December.

The Hut Group also has an online entertainment retail site and sells a range of lifestyle and leisure products including DVDs, books, games consoles and the latest gadgets.

ENDS

About The Hut Group

Based in Northwich, Cheshire, The Hut Group was established in 2004 by Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore. TheHut.com is the fifth largest online entertainment retailer selling home entertainment products such as books, DVDs and games.

Alongside the company’s online retail site, The Hut Group runs a white label website service for a number of leading retailers including ASDA, DSGi group and LOVEFiLM.

A Sunday Times Tech Track company, The Hut Group is the fastest growing technology company in the North West and ranked 8th in the UK.

For further information please contact:
Elizabeth West / Dana Corson
Berkeley Public Relations
Tel: 01629 826942
thehut@berkeleypr.co.uk
www.berkeleypr.co.uk

In the year to the end of June the Northwich-based company made a pre-tax profit of around £200,000 on sales of £14.1m but Moulding expects sales by the end of the year to be much higher. “We’re turning over £1.5m a month compared to £500,000 a month this last year,” he said. “Our big period is Christmas, and our run rate off the first six months suggests we’ll do £27m.”

The Hut.com has also just signed a three-year deal with the Irish owners of sendit.com which could be worth up to £20m in revenues to the firm, said Moulding, who until recently was finance director at 20:20 Logistics — the mobile phone distribution firm sold by John Caudwell to US venture capitalist Doughty Hanson for £347m in August 2006.

Moulding, 36, who owns 58 per cent of the Hut.com, said he began looking at the idea of an online entertainment site after buying a CD from a Jersey-based business in October 2003. When he discovered firms based offshore had been able to take advantage of a rule known as the Low Value Consignment Relief (which exempted items below £18 that are purchased outside the EU from VAT), he started planning his own launch and eventually convinced a couple of friends to chip in to help launch the site with an initial £500,000 investment.

The offshore advantage had almost disappeared prior to the site’s launch in April 2004 once HMV and Tesco announced plans to open their own offshore operations. Yet he and former Caudwell colleague John Gallemore (who has run the site since its inception and holds an 18 per cent stake) persevered. They scrapped plans to try to build theHut.com brand through online advertising within a month and instead concentrated on the white label model. “It’s expensive to get traffic to your site through the likes of Google Ads and online marketing. There are a lot of fraudsters out there.”

As it is, he still expects theHut.com site to bring in around £6m of the forecasted £27m for 2008 but admits it needs an overhaul.

“The first thing people do is look at our site, but we’ve been so busy doing everyone else’s that ours has been put on the back burner.”

The firm currently ships all CDs and games from three warehouses in Guernsey and Jersey but has recently been looking at other options including shipping from Chicago, which would be “less expensive and just as quick, if not quicker”.

He said the long term goal was to grow sales to £100m through developing new territories, customers and sales channels.

The sendit.com deal, with e5.5bn-turnover Irish company DCC Group, should allow it to do the former once it recruits multilingual support staff, and the hunt for new customers will probably involve acquisitions (it has retained Clearwater Corporate Finance to size up potential targets).

For new channels, it is planning to launch online sales of flowers, t-shirts, lingerie and perfume, among others. The latter will be done in conjunction with fellow Burnley FC fan, Brendan Flood of Modus Ventures.

He is also exploring the possibility of launching The Hut.com concessions within some of Modus’s shopping centres. The terminals would offer shoppers items at cheaper rates than neighbours, he said, as they would operate on lower overheads. It would do deals for smaller, empty units and place terminals within window spaces. The units would not need to be staffed, he argues, and window space could be sold to third party advertisers. He estimates that a small unit with a cheap fit-out would cost around £200,000 — half of which could be recouped on selling window space.

“If we don’t sell a thing, having that level of brand awareness could help towards lifting our online sales,” he said. “And if it’s crap, we could just drop it. We’re not ashamed to admit if something’s wrong. The worst that can happen is someone pees on my computer screens.”

Richard Faulkner, an area director with Bank of Scotland, which is not a lender to the company, said Moulding’s growth plans were “impressive, particularly in the light of the current retail environment”.

Faulkner added: “The directors’ choice to enter the market as a white-label provider has proved to be inspired. It leaves them well-placed to acquire branded rivals.”