- With 100% quarter-on-quarter growth prior to the onset of the pandemic, Bristol-based are reporting聽50% growth on last month’s figures.
- Essential items鈥� category grows by 63,000% from February to March after launching in January.
- CEO and co-founder Martin Bysh attributes growth to companies being forced into e-commerce as a result of the crisis, alongside 3rd-party fulfilment issues in marketplace giant Amazon.
- Bristol-based huboo targets the聽targets 拢27 billion U.K., Europe and U.S. fulfilment market and unlocks SME growth gridlock.
- Chaos of coronavirus has seen disrupted SMEs flock to the innovative 鈥榤icro-hub鈥� design of huboo.
Bristol-based fulfilment centre聽聽has continued to seize new business during the COVID-19 epidemic with a unique, socially-distanced 鈥榤icro-hub鈥� design implemented well before lockdown began.
With a recent investment by Maersk Growth, the corporate venture arm of shipping giant AP-Moller Maersk, huboo was experiencing 100% quarter-on-quarter growth prior to the onset of the pandemic. The firm is now reporting 50% growth on last month’s figures and serves nearly 300 retailers. With an initial seed funding of 拢1m last year, this tripling of its customer base represents a 600% year on year increase.
Amazon鈥檚 lengthening FBA lead times, supermarket stock issues and coronavirus forcing firms to e-commerce models have been attributed to this rapid growth during a time of wide-spread economic turmoil.
CEO and co-founder Martin Bysh says:
鈥淎mazon鈥檚 decision to prioritise its own essential items and increase third-party FBA fulfilment lead times by up to four weeks has led to many businesses having to look at handling their own logistics. Lockdown has also seen businesses and consumers who previously resisted the pull of e-Commerce being driven online. These are working in tandem in driving SMEs to look for alternative fulfilment options.
With our micro-hub model, social distancing occurred organically in the work place anyway. Of course, we implemented further safety measures from聽quarantining on full pay, masks, hand sanitisers to repeated washing of surfaces and staggered breaks, but this could be done with little to no effect on our business structure. For us, it鈥檚 very much business as usual.鈥�
Whilst huboo鈥檚 plans for expansion into Europe have been put on hold, the company plans to grow聽the use of its SaaS interface聽throughout the UK, along with more clients and more warehouses.
