Midlands-based online flooring retailer breaks daily record on Black Friday
The UK’s leading online flooring retailer, which recently opened a base in Coventry, broke its daily sales record on Black Friday as part of its most successful ever week in its 15-year history.
UK Flooring Direct took 1,400 orders on Black Friday alone, up 87 per cent on the same time last year, with orders up across the week by 81 per cent on the same period in 2019.
The company, which sells quality own-brand wood, laminate, and vinyl flooring direct to consumers and trade right across the country, sold a square metre of flooring every two-and-a-half seconds on Black Friday as it reached 38,400 square metres sold by midnight.
That’s enough flooring to cover more than five full size football pitches and, if laid back to back in square metres would stretch from the company’s headquarters in Hinckley to Birmingham.
It caps a busy few weeks for UK Flooring Direct, which opened its second site in the Midlands in Coventry in October and then saw an injection of £8m of investment from BGF in November.
Josh Ashby, Chief Commercial Officer at UK Flooring Direct, said: “It was an extremely busy few days, building on a very exciting few weeks for the business which has seen our growth really accelerate.
“Black Friday was our biggest ever day of sales as we took 1,400 orders – starting shortly after 7am with the final order in the minutes before midnight. In terms of geography, we saw orders from as far north as Inverness and as far south as Truro.
“It takes a real team effort to pull off these kind of figures and to fulfil those levels of orders as well as quite considerable planning. We are very pleased to have achieved another record-breaking day and it sets us up for further growth through to the end of the year and into 2021.”
Jason Ashby, CEO of UK Flooring Direct – who established the company in 2005, paid tribute to the firm’s 170 staff across every department.
He said: “This has been a really difficult time for the whole country and now, more than ever, people have been investing in their homes due to the fact that we are all spending much more time there.
“We were growing very quickly prior to 2019 but there is no doubt that lockdown has accelerated the pace of growth in online retail and we have invested heavily in people and technology to be at the forefront of the flooring market.
“The success wouldn’t be possible without such a fantastic team in place across each and every department. We’ve made this a great place for people to work and that means there is a real buzz when we smash through our targets because everyone is pulling in the same direction.
“We are looking to reach 200 staff before the end of the year and we are aiming to add another 100 in 2021 as our growth continues. It means more people can come and be part of this success story for the Midlands region.”
Pictured (left to right): Darren Gilbert, Jason Ashby, Josh Ashby (all UK Flooring Direct)
