E-tailing success story for Birmingham on-line retailer

WAE+ has been named the second fastest-growing e-tailer in Europe by Internet Retailer in its annual report on European on-line retailers.

 Internet Retailer Europe 500

Internet Retailer’s 2013 Europe 500 report ranks all of the major retail chains that sell on-line across Europe. Each retailer’s individual profile and listing comprises performance and business measures, including annual sales, monthly website visits and conversion rate.

Crediting the online retailer’s in-house e-commerce technology and website platform, which sources best-priced items from a range of suppliers internationally, for WAE+’s success, Internet Retailer’s annual report stated: “WAE+’s organisational structure has been essential to its growth. For a company that started up amid sour economic times, WAE+ has succeeded in keeping its costs low, which have helped it become a favourite with on-line buyers.”

In just two years, WAE+ sales have jumped 445 per cent from £1.65 million in 2012 to £9 million, thanks to its ability to offer low priced products across its entire range, which incorporates consumer electronics, business computing and IT products, food and drink, and toys. The on-line retailer now has over 450,000 visits to its website every month, a growth of 750 per cent from last year.

Ben Slater, Operations Director at WAE+, said: “Our background is e-commerce web site development where we worked with a range of retailers so realised that there was a lack of data-driven IT systems that could help source best-priced items.

“WAE+ was started in 2011 primarily as an office supplies company, but we have developed our flexible IT framework further to now source competitive pricing across our whole range of products, which has resulted in an increase in sales and traffic to our website. This supports a period of significant growth that saw us relocate to a new distribution centre in Birmingham with office space and a 15,000 sq ft dedicated on site warehouse.”

WAE+ now offers over 125,000 core items and its recently-launched health and beauty department will support the company’s impressive growth.

For more information, visit www.waeplus.com.