Bathrooms.com Launches French Site With £10m Sales Plan

Online retailer Bathrooms.com, whose financial backers include Lord Rothschild, has launched a French language website in its first overseas foray.

The site, run by former UBS executive Ian Monk, plans to begin shipping to the country via a French depot and a French language site fr.Bathrooms.com. The launch is the first step in a plan that will see further sites in Europe and the US.

Bathrooms.com said there is a 'gap in the affordable interior design market' in France and could hit £10 million by the end of next year.

'We have spent a long time researching overseas markets. We know that the French market is around the same size as the UK and as such see the potential for us to match our UK run rate of £10 million in 12 months. With our experience and expertise we believe we can make the same impact that has taken us eight years to make in the UK in just 18 months in France,' Monk told KBBdaily.com.

Monk said: 'We have been growing at circa 50-60 per cent year on year, so our aims are to break in to the French market then expand to other countries in Europe. As a firm we will then be looking at a projected 300 per cent year-on-year growth. We have taken the values that UK consumers demand which are good design and good quality at prices everyone can afford and provide them overseas.'

The orders will initially be fulfilled by UK warehouses with a promise of the same two-day delivery window as in the UK. But Monk said he also plans to open a separate depot in France which will received several shipments a week from the UK.

'We felt we could put a foot into the continent without having to create too much of a logistical structure. We import about 80 per cent of our product from the Far East, with 20 per cent from the UK. However, we're working more with UK partner and manufacturers here,' he told GrowthBusiness.co.uk, explaining how the supply chain to France would work.

'We could have spent another six to nine months getting everything perfect before we went out there but we chose to get out there quickly, learning as we go and adapting over time,' he said.

The business has collected a list of keywords searched in the UK and translated them into French to help push the launch. Monk said the cost of customer acquisition in Europe is lower than in the UK and added that French consumers are paying 50 per cent to 100 per cent for products of a comparable quality of its own.

Bathrooms.com said it is determined to uphold the same high standard of customer care of that in the UK. Staff increases across suppliers will result in an extra 10 manufacturing jobs in the UK over the next six months as the result.

Lord Jacob Rothschild took a £7.5 million stake in the business last April via his Augmentum Capital fund valuing the retailer at £20 million. At the time Monk, who reportedly set up the business to stop his wife getting bored, said he planned to double sales from £5 million in 12 months. Dawn Capital is also an investor and, at the time, Monk controlled 35 per cent of the business.