Andrew Lynch- 26 July 2024
Salisbury school friends Monty George and Dan Beckles used a tech-savvy focus on customer service to create Furniturebox, a digital furniture retailer, that expects to turnover £27m this year.
“I used to do a lot of eBay trading from around the age of 12,” says George. By 16, he was selling anything from touchscreen tablets to watches. In the sixth form, George spotted an opportunity to sell furniture. As Beckles was about to study economics at Loughborough University, George made him an offer. “I said: ‘Do you fancy taking a year out and seeing if the furniture thing can work? And then if it doesn’t you can go off to uni?’ – and here we are nine years on,” recalls George, now 27.
They started with online marketplaces – eBay, Amazon and Tesco Direct – and channels such as Wayfair, B&Q and The Range. “There’s a massive opportunity for us to establish our brand and to bring our core values to customers in the market,” says Beckles, 26. “The limitation with marketplaces is that you’re beholden to them.” They also wanted to break the mould with their customer service.
The company offers next-day delivery until 8 pm in the UK, explains Beckles, 26, while its customer service teams are available seven days a week. Its Trustpilot score is 4.9 out of five, based on almost 7,000 reviews.
Less than 18 months ago, Furniturebox moved to a new 88,000 sq. ft fulfilment centre off the M4 near Chippenham, Wiltshire, to allow the business to grow. Beckles and George initially ran a tight ship as they bootstrapped the business selling value furniture. “We were fighting for every pound,” says George.
Turnover in the year to the end of July 2022 stood at £15.9m, up almost 400 per cent on 2019. With an expansion into the US, the pair will face new pressures. “We want to grow quickly,” says George, “but we don’t want it to be at the detriment of losing everything we have: the team, the structures and the culture we have in place.”
Read about more inspirational businesses in our Growth Stories series.
Related and recommended
The home appliances inventor and entrepreneur explains what he’s learned from sponsoring Brentford FC
An ill-fated product launch 40 years ago became one of the biggest marketing blunders ever and still holds lessons today
John Stapleton argues that telling young people hard work is outdated may be the most damaging lie in modern business
Neil Mullarkey is an improvisational comedian who has a few tricks to teach the world of business