|
Flying Brands is a multi brand home shopping company that floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1993 (ticker FBDU, listed under "Retailers"). The company started life as Flying Flowers which was established in 1980’s, growing carnations on a farm on Jersey initially for tourists but it quickly developed into a home shopping business exporting carnation bouquets by post across the UK. Flying Flowers is now a predominantly gift giving business, offering better value alternatives to competitors such as Interflora. We despatch nearly 1 million bouquets a year, ranging from carnations and roses to lilies and chrysanthemums.
Following flotation, the company expanded rapidly, and in 1995 we acquired DPA Direct out of which we built Gardening Direct. The demand for Flying Flowers’ carnations was starting to exceed supply, so we therefore decided to stop growing our own and instead began to import them. We started producing bedding plants for Gardening Direct in the old carnation nurseries. Offering high quality, good value plants direct to customers, Gardening Direct captured both the imagination of the public and substantial market share.We now grow over 120 million plants under glass in two nurseries on Jersey.
Both Flying Flowers and Gardening Direct are now market leaders. We have expanded into new product arenas (non flower gifts for Flying Flowers; new plant varieties and hardware for Gardening Direct) and we are constantly looking for better ways to serve the combined database of 5 million customers.
Benham, our collectables business, was acquired in 1990’s. It offers bespoke first day covers for stamps and coins, celebrating and commemorating key events and people from around the world.Benham joined the Flying Brands stable in response to the rapid expansion of the general collectables market. Today Benham is growing through developing new products that capture the interest of the public such as the Royal Family, Elvis Presley, Concorde, topical films and sporting events and heroes. It is also developing a strong trade and wholesale business alongside the direct marketing of products to its customers.
We also developed a successful audio book brand, Listen2Books, which grew rapidly into the biggest direct retailer of audio books in the UK. In 2004, we added videos and DVDs, promoting classic films and old television series.
In 2005, we started trading in three divisions: Gifts, Garden and Entertainment, and started looking for strategic acquisitions that would enhance our business and offer a wider choice of products to our growing database of customers. The first of these was Silverminds Direct, a nostalgic music and DVD business, which we have merged with Listen2Books to form a new brand called Listen2, promoting audio books, nostalgic music on CD as well as DVDs of great film, television series and general interest titles.
Alongside Gardening Direct in the Garden Division, we acquired, in 2005, Garden Bird Supplies, a leading and very profitable supplier of high quality wild bird and animal food, as well as garden accessories.
We sell all of our products through catalogues mailed to our customers and through the individual brands’ web sites: internet sales have grown rapidly over the last two years and we will see this exciting trend continuing. We also advertise in national newspapers as well as in national and specialist magazines. Once a new customer has placed an order, they enter a refined series of promotions (catalogue mailings and e-mails) with offers differentiated by season. We utilise a sophisticated targeting system that maximises response and minimises waste.
Our marketing efforts are underpinned by our order processing and call centre in Essex and our pack and despatch centre at our corporate headquarters in Jersey. Our IT systems ensure both seamless communication between sites and the automated analysis of customer data which is needed to run the business quickly and accurately. We employ 300 people.
Flying Brands is committed to maximising opportunities, minimising risks and delivering increasing value to its customers and shareholders.
For further information, see our brand web sites or contact Anthony Gee, Finance Director & Company Secretary on agee@flyingbrands.com.
|
