Chorley-based fulfilment services provider fulfilmentcrowd has opened new centres in Yorkshire, France and the Netherlands to serve growing demand from ecommerce retailers.
The investment will increase its overall capacity by around 48 per cent and create 25 new jobs, taking the company's total workforce to 130 across its 13 worldwide locations.
The new 28,000 sq ft Yorkshire centre is located in Belton and will serve a growing base of Northern-based SME retailers. The site will be operated in partnership with Connect Warehousing, which has joined fulfilmentcrowd’s Fulfilment Partner Network.
The European centres in Lieusaint, France, and Born, its second in the Netherlands, provide fulfilmentcrowd with 150,000 sq ft of additional space to support growing UK exports, as well as helping drive the company’s European expansion.
Lee Thompson, managing director at fulfilmentcrowd, said: "During the past 12 months, we’ve seen 67 per cent growth in the number of eCommerce SME retailers we’re working with.
"We’re now picking, packing and moving products for more than 500 retailers across the UK, with projections for this rate of growth to continue over the next few years. The new centres will enable us to effectively meet this demand, meaning we can sustain growth, whilst maintaining high-quality standards and providing customers with the expertise and confidence to scale their businesses.
"UK-based SME retailers are increasingly targeting international ecommerce consumers and want this to be affordable and hassle-free. Growing our global presence achieves this by eradicating the need for British ecommerce retailers to worry about any complexities, excessive costs and delays of cross-border trading, whether that’s within the EU or beyond.”
In addition to meeting export demand from UK retailers, fulfilmentcrowd pinpointed the centres in France and Netherlands as prime locations for offering its services to European-based small and medium-sized ecommerce retailers.
Lee added: "France is Europe’s second-largest ecommerce market, behind the UK, and having a base there will prove instrumental to our growth throughout the continent. The location of Born, which is close to the borders of Germany and Belgium, will also enable us to efficiently and effectively strengthen our distribution routes across Europe."
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