Today, we’re delighted to announce the launch of Brightpearl’s inaugural Lightning 50, the league table that showcases and celebrates the UK’s fastest growing online retail brands from the past year.
Our researchers tracked growth rates for hundreds of companies across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to find out which UK e-tailers which have grown the most during the coronavirus pandemic.
Swansea-based premium drink brand, Au Vodka, was revealed as the UK’s fastest growing online brand from 2019 to 2020 – the most challenging period ever for British retail.
Au Vodka finished atop the Trustpilot-sponsored list, with a net growth of more than 10,000%. Au Vodka is a premium vodka brand and is owned by Welsh duo Charlie Morgan and Jackson Quinn, and partially owned by DJ, producer and TV presenter, Charlie Sloth.
As well as taking the title of Overall Winner, Au Vodka was also recognized as the fastest growing company within the Luxury Sector and Regional Winner for Wales.
“I entered the Lightning 50 on a bit of a whim, not expecting to win,” said Jordan Major, Head of e-Commerce at Au Vodka.
“Then the call came in to say we’d won not one but three titles, I was absolutely buzzing. I ran in to tell the rest of the team and they all started cheering – it was a real moment for us.
“We’re always working hard towards our next launch or next goal, so we’ve barely come up for air in two years. Winning the Lightning 50 has given us the chance to step back for a brief moment and see that we’ve achieved something that’s pretty awesome.”
To compile the Lightning 50, we asked brands to submit annual growth figures from 2019 to 2020, with each brand ranked solely on its net growth percentage during that time frame.
The Lightning 50 top ten, and the recorded growth for each are:
- Au Vodka – 10170%
- Powerhoop – 2960%
- Jericho Coffee Traders – 683%
- Candy Kittens – 608%
- The Sardar Co – 503%
- Olivia’s – 500%
- Maplin – 495%
- IndeJuice Limited – 488%
- Tradeprices Bathrooms – 423%
- CyberJammies – 372%
Huge congratulations to the top ten, and to every business that made the Lightning 50.
As well as revealing the UK’s overall fastest growing online brands, the Lightning 50 has also revealed the fastest e-tailers spanning sector, including burgeoning areas such as Home & Garden, Health and beauty, and fashion. It also recognizes the fastest growing businesses by region.
Did your company make the list? The full Lightning 50 can be found here.
Looking at the combined revenue across the Lightning 50 over the past year, brands earnt more than £340m, with the average growth rate for online retailers at 518%.
In terms of the sectors which appeared most in the list, ‘Fashion & Footwear’ and ‘Homewares’ were on top, with each category recording a total of nine brands in the top 50 (36%).
Delving further into the data, we discovered that the South West is a booming region for e-commerce. This area had the greatest proportion of brands represented in the list with almost one in five (18%) of the fastest growing e-commerce brands based there.
It’s no surprise to us that so many online retailers are performing so well, despite the challenging climate. Data from our own 1,000 strong customer base shows many multichannel retailers reporting incredible success rates upwards of 600% since the start of the pandemic – and we decided it was time to celebrate the nation’s fastest ecommerce growers over the past 12 months.
It’s wonderful for us to be able to publish the inaugural Lightning 50 as a way to celebrate and recognize the hard work that has gone into this growth. Everyone who made the Lightning 50 should be immensely proud!
