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Building Supplies Online

Acquisition Opportunity

Hilco Streambank ("Hilco") is seeking offers to acquire the intellectual property assets of Building Supplies Online Limited (In Administration) ("Building Supplies Online" or the "Company") on behalf of the Joint Administrators of the Company, David Shambrook and Sarah Cook of FRP Advisory Trading Limited

Under Offer

Background

Founded in 2010, Building Supplies Online was an online distributor of building products, offering competitively priced building supplies and tools to trade and retail customers. With over 50,000 products, the Company offered one of the largest ranges of building products available online in the UK.

Recognising the decline of the traditional bricks-and-mortar stores, Building Supplies Online operated exclusively via its popular online proprietary platform (the "Platform"). Using clever technology, the Company's Platform connects merchants directly to consumers, allowing customers to browse an extensive range of products quickly, easily, and from anywhere, giving customers the best choice at trade prices.

           

The Company’s extensive range of products included Windows, Doors, Bathrooms, Tiles, Paving, Insulation, Fencing, Fixings, Building Materials and more. Building Supplies Online’s Platform showcased leading-brand building supplies from the likes of leading roof window manufacturer VELUX, renowned bathroom product brands Armitage Shanks and Roca, and market-leading insulation brand Rockwool.

The Building Supplies Online brand and e-commerce Platform are the product of significant investment, with the Company investing over £650k in building the Platform. Since its launch in January 2020, the Platform has managed upwards of 300k tasks and 3.5m actions. Further, the Platform has proven to handle more than 8,000 orders per month without impacting performance. Between 1 May 2021 and 30 May 2022, the website attracted over 4.8m users and facilitated c. 44k transactions, converting to revenue of c. £17m.

Prior to its Administration, the Company operated a primarily drop-ship-based business model, with only c. 25% of orders made via the Platform fulfilled from stock and c. 75% dropship. Drop shipping arrangements reduced the Company’s operational costs and risk, a model available to the prospective purchaser of the Platform.

The Company previously serviced a diverse customer base of trade customers and the general public, with the former making up c. 64% of the Company’s revenue pre-Administration. In addition to its extensive customer base, the Company managed a robust supplier network of many reputable companies and industry-leading brands.

This acquisition opportunity offers a savvy buyer the unique opportunity to acquire a previously c. £17m revenue-generating e-commerce Platform with a tested, scalable and low-overhead tech infrastructure tailored perfectly to the building supplies sector and designed to exploit the clear trends set to dominate the market.

Available Assets

Building Supplies Online Brand

The Building Supplies Online brand is well-known and highly regarded, particularly across the UK.

The Building Supplies Online brand embodies the Company’s vision of offering a quality range of building products, from industry-leading manufacturers, direct to the trade and public at trade prices.

The brand has been featured prominently by various media outlets, garnering attention from Selfbuilder + Homemaker Magazine, DIY Week and Insight DIY.

In addition to the press coverage, Building Supplies Online is coveted by various social media influencers, interior bloggers and customers, further bolstering the brand.

Building Supplies Online is a trusted e-commerce brand ranked as "Excellent" in over 2,700 reviews on Trust Pilot.

In seeking to simplify the shopping experience and ensure sourcing and choosing the best quality building products is both seamless and pleasurable, Building Supplies Online’s mission is to empower its customers to deliver excellent customer service and experience without compromise.

The brand and Building Supplies Online website established a loyal customer following, boosted by engaging social media accounts.

Trade Mark

The “BSO” brand name is protected by the UK registered trade mark (UK00003003317), spanning a range of services from retail e-commerce to electronic data storage and processing.

Domain Names

The Company holds the primary, high-traffic building-supplies-online.co.uk domain name, which hosted the Company’s intelligent e-commerce Platform.

The Company also owns the attractive three-letter bso.co.uk domain name.

The Platform

The Company owns the copyright in the content of the sleek building-supplies-online.co.uk e-commerce website, which was directly linked to revenues.

Building-supplies-online.co.uk is a unique, disruptive tech platform tailored to the unique challenges of selling building materials online.

The Platform is a state-of-the-art e-commerce website based on the Magento platform. In addition to its elegant design, the Platform features bespoke data integration for better stock management.

Ensuring seamless navigation, the Platform's product filter based on category, brand or price allows customers to narrow down the options from their chosen criteria quickly and easily. Searching is intelligent, too, with a predictive graphical search facility. The website also offers full integration with Google Shopping, ensuring maximum traffic to the Platform.

Driving the vision for excellent customer service via the website, the Platform also features a LiveChat facility, ensuring queries are answered quickly and expertly, with fewer purchasing errors. The dedicated portal directing trade buyers to set up a trade account is an additional helpful feature of building-supplies-online.co.uk.

Other attractive features of the Platform include the Cart2Quote feature that allows quotes for an amount to be generated, saved and converted into an order when it suits the customer. Checking out orders is also straightforward and convenient and offers full integration with PayPal Express and SagePay.

Between 1 May 2021 and 30 May 2022, the website attracted over 4.8m users. A high proportion of the traffic to the website is organic or direct, with a significant portion of the visitors also driven by digital marketing activity. For the same period, the Company’s e-commerce website channel facilitated c. 44k transactions and generated revenue of c. £17m.

Customer Data

The Company has a vast customer database containing c. 250k customer records. Newsletters with inspiration and special offers were sent to customers, further enhancing engagement.

Supplier Data

The Company holds a well-recorded database of its key suppliers, with whom it has established strong relationships.

Social Media

A robust social media presence supports the Building Supplies Online brand and website:

Instagram - @bso.co.uk c. 17.7k followers

Facebook - @BuildingSuppliesOnline c. 13.6k followers

Twitter - @BuildingandDIY c. 5.4k followers

Pinterest - @bsouk c. 840 followers

YouTube - BSO c. 660 subscribers

Sale Process

All expressions of interest and bids are to be directed to Hilco in writing. A Bid Submission Form is available on request. Detailed information and access to a virtual data room is available under NDA, which can be downloaded here.

Key Terms & Conditions

The bidder acknowledges that Hilco acts as an agent for the Joint Administrators of the Company who offers for sale only what right, title and interest (if any) the Company possesses in the assets. Such sale will be without any warranties, expressed or implied. Hilco or the Joint Administrators have verified the information provided, and bidders are deemed to have carried out their own due diligence.

VAT, if applicable, at 20% will be added to the price. A non-refundable deposit of 20% will be payable by the buyer within 48 hours of bid acceptance. A 10% buyer’s premium is payable by the winning bidder on completion. Legal completion to occur within 5 business days of bid acceptance. Hilco Streambank's full Terms and Conditions apply. 

Contact Us

To register your interest and for further information about the sale process, please contact the following Hilco Streambank representatives:

Jack Gillespie
+44 (0) 7519 128827
jgillespie@hilcoglobal.eu

Interested Parties

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