A business in Teeside, which relies heavily on the European market, has launched a three-year plan to drive a £11m+ turnover by launching new online stores in both Germany and France.
The Thornaby based workwear company M.I. Supplies is already set to mark the end of its 12th year in operation with a record sales figure. Its income climbed from £2.3m to £2.5m in 2017. The business’s brand new plan, which has been named Project 2020, aims to break these figures by the end of the decade.
Alex Ingham, the founder of M.I. Supplies, said: “We’re not doing a complete 360-degree turn with the business, but we are looking to drive our online growth even further over the next three years.
“£11m might sound like a figure we’ve plucked out of the sky. But people told me I was crazy quoting £2m in online sales a year ago, and we’re on course to achieve that in 2018.
“We’ve looked at how the website has grown. It has done exactly what we wanted it to after developing it a year ago.
“To get to £10m by 2020, we need four online orders every 15 minutes. We’re not looking to re-invent the wheel; we’re just building on what we’ve already achieved and carrying on doing what works, and more importantly what works for the customer.”
M.I. Supplies is among the leading suppliers of workplace equipment in the United Kingdom. Ahead of the online launches in Germany and France, Alex Ingham said his business has done its market research to achieve similar results in other European countries.
“We can deliver to Germany a lot cheaper than German companies can deliver to the UK, so we’ve got a really valuable proposition for the customer,” he added.
“We’re still picking up new B2B contracts and that remains an important part of the business. We still need both, but online gives us more markets and opens us up to the whole world.”
M.I. Supplies was established in 2005. It was founded in an empty building with no stock and no customers. Since then, it has blossomed into one of the United Kingdom’s top names for workplace PPE, clothing, footwear and more. It was shortlisted for a North East Business Award in 2017.
