Website Closers® presents an eCommerce company that has over two decades of experience as the premiere online location for the sale of home goods with a focus on products for cooking and entertaining. As people spend more time at home, the kitchen has taken on new significance for millions of people. As a result, the demand for a wide variety of cookware and kitchen tools has skyrocketed. This company is exceptionally well positioned to ride that wave, having spent 21 years developing excellent relationships with the largest and best kitchenware brands in the industry. That has enabled this company to dramatically expand its product line of kitchenware, tabletop items, and small appliances to more than 12,000 SKUs and become a pandemic proof leader in this space. This company is a premier retailer in this space, being offered a priority position and exclusive right to sell by suppliers and sales channels alike.
The diversity combined with the company’s excellent reputation for high quality, premium items and great customer service have developed into a recognizable brand, continuing to drive sales higher each year, particularly as more consumers shift their buying habits to online sales. As consumers continue searching for specialized items that are not readily available in their local retail stores, this brand has been fully capable of meeting their needs. Whatever the customer was looking for – appliances, electric cookware, bakeware, cutlery, table settings and bar and wine accessories – this brand offered them multiple options in each category.
The brand’s growing sales demonstrate how popular their products have become with consumers, and how well this company has homed in its marketing to its customer base. The brand has been at the cutting edge of these trends and has enjoyed continuous year-over-year growth, showing dramatic growth from 2019 – 2021. The future of this business is healthy and well secured, proving to be pandemic proof aided by the well executed inventory management and proprietary software. The Online Kitchenware industry’s improved strength and significant revenue growth owes much to consumers eagerly embracing the convenience of online retail shopping and to the enduring strength in the housing market. This industry is now valued at $7 billion and is projected to keep growing by 8%. For this brand, that means a lot of new customers to welcome onboard in the coming years.
This eCommerce Business was launched 21 years ago to market products online in the home goods niche field, becoming a highly successful multichannel retailer. Sales channels include Amazon, Houzz, Walmart, Target, Newegg, and their own branded website. Products were chosen and sourced from top vendors in this field, and the company enjoys terrific business relationships. The company also developed its own customized and optimized in-house software. This proprietary software operates across all sales channels, giving this company a smooth and highly automated business operation bringing with it efficiencies that dramatically increased earnings while reducing working capital requirements. Those have been key factors in the company’s growth. With more than 12,000 SKUs at an average order value of $85, sales remain strong throughout the year, and they enjoy a sharp spike during the holidays, when as much as 25% of the company’s gross sales is made.
While many of their products appeal to consumers who love to cook, the brand has an equally strong consumer base among people who enjoy entertaining at home. Products such as Bar Mixology Kits, Espresso makers, beer and wine glasses and European Cookware sets are among the many items they sell.
The company has impressive demographics. Their typical customer is a woman between the age of 30 and 55, educated and with an income between $75,000 and $100,000. Most of their customers express a preference for both cooking and entertaining.
Having achieved so much success since inception, a natural expansion would be private branding, allowing the company to outsource the manufacturing of new products to a vendor and securing the exclusive right to sell. There’s no question that after 21 years and 12,000+ SKUs, this company understands what its customers are looking for and can design products that will appeal to them.
A second key growth option would be an expansion of the website and to start selling in Social Media Marketplaces. Sales are so strong currently that they ship 500 – 4000 orders daily depending upon seasonality. Operating in a 52,000 square foot warehouse, they stock up to $2.0 million worth of inventory and place orders with vendors several times a month. This brand is on a growth path to become a household name.
A creative way to expand operations would be to build an additional revenue stream as a 3PL for their vendors and other businesses. Owning their proprietary software easily makes this achievable and with at least 40% space available in their current warehouse, this is another
creative way to expand operations and increase sales. Digital marketing provides new growth opportunities as well. The company now has 2,200+ subscribers in their email database and use that for monthly email blasts. That’s helped to give them 17,500+ visitors each month.
There are clear options to take the company’s marketing to a higher level. The company could expand its social media presence and launch an affiliate and influencers campaign, which would be particularly useful if they start private brand labeling.
The company’s current ownership now devotes 20-40 hours per week on operations, remotely, and their experienced team includes one full time operations director, four full time department managers, five warehouse team leads and 12 warehouse generalists/specialists. The team responds daily to 10 customer service inquiries by phone and 60 a day by email.
A buyer has the opportunity to take this company’s hard work and their enormous customer base and effectively scale this company to considerably higher levels of profitability.
