A British furniture e-commerce company founded by a Chinese is going public? The company's valuation exceeds 500 million pounds!

According to foreign media SKYNEWS , Made.com, a British furniture e-commerce company co-founded by Chinese entrepreneur Li Ning, revealed its listing plan at the end of February.

In 2020, Li Ning and his companions founded the furniture e-commerce company Made.com in London, England. Most of the furniture sold online are designed by excellent or even well-known designers, but the prices are only a fraction of those in traditional furniture malls. Relying on its outstanding price advantage, the company's business had already grown by 700% in 2011.

It is reported that the company's operating model is similar to that of fast-moving consumer goods brands. It first publishes a number of trendy home design drawings on the Internet, and consumers vote for their favorite furniture and place orders. When the order volume meets the minimum production requirements, orders are placed centrally with Chinese factories, and the produced furniture is then shipped to British consumers by sea.

As a rare furniture e-commerce company at the time, Made.com cut out a large number of middlemen, and all its products were manufactured in countries and regions with lower labor and raw material costs. Product prices dropped significantly, and the works of the company's designers were generally 75% cheaper than those of competing brands . Because of this, Made.com 's annual profits cannot be underestimated, and it has achieved huge success in Europe.

At that time, Made.com's biggest competitors were still traditional European furniture retailers, which occupied a large market share and had a very loyal user base. Although these European brands were very slow to move to the Internet, had very high operating costs, mediocre performance, and various problems, at a time when Europeans generally preferred to buy furniture offline, Made.com was still unable to overcome the huge obstacle of offline physical stores.

As early as 2012, some European media believed that Made.com was already the leader of online furniture retailers in the UK, but Li Ning and his team had more ambitions than that. At that time, their goal was to "become the next IKEA." Unexpectedly, the 2020 epidemic suddenly came like a "black swan", and the online market rose on a large scale. Made.com suddenly became a trendsetter in furniture e-commerce.

Today, this furniture e-commerce brand founded in 2010 is at the forefront of the expansion of the online shopping market and has successfully expanded its business from the UK to nine European countries including France, Germany and Switzerland. In 2019, Made.com's annual sales reached 212 million pounds, a year-on-year increase of 22%. With the bonus of the 2020 epidemic, its outdoor furniture sales increased by 110% year-on-year.

Taking advantage of the current favorable situation, Made.com is also planning to go public. It is reported that Made.com's company valuation has exceeded 500 million pounds, and some insiders believe that Made.com's valuation is far more than 500 million pounds, close to 1 billion pounds. However, the company has not yet finalized its listing plan. If Made.com finally decides to go public, its strong performance last year will win a lot of help on its way to listing.

E-commerce platform

Cross-border e-commerce market

UK e-commerce