The Hebden Bridge man behind an e-commerce company specialising in active and lifestyle products is celebrating a bumper sales period after taking part in Amazon’s two biggest days ever for SMEs.
William Vaughan is the Managing Director of e-commerce business Bluefin Trading, a West Yorkshire company that operates Bluefin Fitness, Bluefin SUP and Bluefin Active. Bluefin Trading specialises in home fitness equipment, wellbeing, water sports and the outdoors.
The Hebden Bridge company took part in Amazon Prime Day 2020, which this year focused on supporting small businesses in the UK. Prime members who spent £10 with select small businesses selling in Amazon’s store earned £10 to spend on Prime Day on 13th and 14th October.
Third party sellers like Bluefin Trading surpassed $3.5 billion in sales on Prime Day globally, with UK SMEs selling 75% more products than they did in Prime Day 2019.
Prime Day 2020 delivered the two biggest days ever for third-party sellers like Bluefin Trading, globally and in the UK, nearly all of which are small and medium-sized businesses. Sellers saw record-breaking sales, surpassing $3.5 billion in total across 19 countries. In addition, Prime members around the world saved over $1.4 billion during the epic deals event, securing deep discounts and getting a jump start on their Christmas shopping.
Bluefin Trading, which has been running since 2013, boasts a team of young digital experts with a family-driven ethos, which fuels the company’s ambitions, creativity and ability to develop new skills.
Bluefin Trading’s team operates from West Yorkshire and Barcelona to Vancouver and East Asia. In the last two years, Bluefin Trading has grown from a staff of four in a home-office to over thirty employees, split between the continent and a modern, purpose-built office facility in the Calderdale hills.
William’s company, which is on track to meet its £30m sales target in 2020, sells products on Amazon to customers in the UK and around the world. Through Amazon, Bluefin Trading currently exports products to Germany, its biggest market, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the US. Bluefin Trading will soon expand into Canada and Australia through selling on Amazon.
Bluefin Trading uses Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), a solution that enables SMEs reach more customers with benefits like fast Prime delivery and easier selling across Europe. SMEs send their products to Amazon, and the company takes care of storage, delivery to customers, customer service and returns handling.
To see how products like his are fulfilled, William made a special visit to Amazon’s Doncaster iPort fulfilment centre for a private tour of the site during Amazon Prime Day. During the visit, the Hebden Bridge man met some of the team responsible for helping small businesses like his to grow in the UK and across the globe.
“Selling our products on Amazon has been a big factor in helping Bluefin Trading expand here in the UK and across the globe and it’s great to meet some of the team who are helping businesses like mine to grow,” said William. “Creating innovative new products is my passion and by using programmes like Fulfilment by Amazon, I have more time to work on designs of future products while a lot of the heavy lifting is being done by the team at Amazon.”
“Small and medium-sized businesses like Bluefin Trading selling on Amazon had the biggest two days ever this Prime Day,” said Doug Gurr, Amazon UK Country Manager. “Compared to last year, these businesses saw an increase of more than 75% in product sales in the UK alone. It’s great to see so many small and medium businesses in the UK embracing online sales for the first time. We are committed to helping our customers save and supporting selling partners with further promotional programmes throughout the season ahead.”
“We are thrilled that Prime Day was a record-breaking event for small and medium businesses worldwide, with sales surpassing $3.5 billion—an increase of nearly 60% from last year,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer. “We’re also proud that Prime members saved more than $1.4 billion worldwide, and we look forward to providing more opportunities for our selling partners to grow and customers to save throughout the festive season. I’m incredibly thankful to our employees and partners around the world who helped make Prime Day possible, especially the dedicated front-line teams in our fulfilment centres and delivery operations.”
William’s visit to Amazon came during the annual Prime Day sales event, which this year supported small businesses. This has been a challenging year for many small businesses but selling in Amazon’s stores has enabled hundreds of thousands of smaller companies around the world to sustain and even grow their businesses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amazon is increasing its commitment to small business by designing Prime Day to support them with its biggest small business promotion yet. This Prime Day, and throughout the festive season, Amazon will spend more than £75 million on promotional activities to help small businesses around the world increase their sales and reach new customers.
