Geoffrey's Magical Place - Surf's Up
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toysrus.co.uk was born in May 1996 becoming the first 'bricks and mortar' retailer to venture into the brave new world of the Internet. The site was launched on a virtual shopping mall called Barclaysquare with around 2000 items but only selling video games and PC software. Fulfillment was carried out from a back office of our Coventry store.
By 1998, the first redesign of the site took place and our catalogue was expanded to sell toys, bikes, outdoor and baby goods.
In 1999, fulfillment moved out of our Coventry store to a 15,000 sq ft facility underneath our Birmingham store. The facility also included a call centre and in 1999 75% of sales came from the phone as opposed to the web.
We outgrew the Birmingham store facility in 2001 moving to a specialist fulfillment /contact centre operation in Manchester and then again in 2003 to new premises in Newcastle where we are still based today.
Today 96% of sales come through the web as opposed to the telephone. What a turn around from 1999! What will be the number in another 10 years time? Will it switch back to the telephone but be via mobile handsets accessing the web? Time will tell
Our latest redesign was in November 2008 when we moved our site to a new platform which allows us to:
- Show product videos to help people understand how products work
- Provide a rich and colourful shopping experience
- Offer customers a greater degree of flexibility in navigating our categories and products
- Ensure that the online shopping process is as fun as it is in our stores!
