Shop Direct Group
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|
| Public | |
| Industry | Retail/Home shopping |
| Predecessor | Littlewoods Shop Direct Group |
| Founded | 1 November 2005 (1923 as Littlewoods Pools) |
| Founders | David and Frederick Barclay |
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Key people
|
David and Frederick Barclay (Owners) |
| Products |
Clothing Electronics Furniture Homeware Jewellery |
| Divisions |
Very Littlewoods Littlewoods.com Littlewoods Ireland |
| Website | www |
Shop Direct Group is a multi-brand online retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is based in the Speke area of the city of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England. Established in November 2005 as a result of the merger of the former Littlewoods and Shop Direct companies, the retailer was known as Littlewoods Shop Direct Group until a corporate rebranding in May 2008.
A business group trading via several digital department stores, Shop Direct traces its roots to a variety of mail order companies in northern England, the football pools and mail order business founded by John Moores, as well as the Manchester-based home shopping business of Great Universal Stores. These companies were purchased by Sir David and Frederick Barclay in 2003, and a major business restructuring took place leading to a merger of two companies that had "been arch rivals for the best part of 100 years".
Since the merger of what had been struggling businesses in 2005, ongoing restructuring and modernisation of the company has resulted in Shop Direct emerging as one of the largest online retailers in the UK. Its traditional paper-based and phone-in orders system has been superseded by electronic commerce technology.
The group is now amongst the largest online retailers in the UK, with annual sales of £1.7bn, of which 81% are online, with almost two-fifths of those from mobile devices.
The group's main brands are Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com. In 2009, Shop Direct also acquired the brand name of the failed Woolworths and re-established it as an online-only operation.
Shop Direct Group traces its roots to a variety of independent mail order and retail companies in northern England, particularly Littlewoods, the pools and mail order business founded by John Moores, as well as the Manchester-based home shopping business of Great Universal Stores. Other businesses from this time now part of Shop Direct include K&Co (formerly Kays Catalogues).
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Wikipedia