CEO's Blog

I am delighted to announce that Chemist Direct has been placed 25th in this year’s Startups 100 list.

The list is described as the definitive countdown of the UK’s most innovative, inspiring and ground-breaking new companies shaping the start-up market right now. We are delighted with our position in the list and are very proud to have been recognised.

Since we launched in November 2007 Chemist Direct has gone from strength-to-strength. We now have a loyal customer base of 300,000 registered users and stock over 20,000 health and beauty products, at competitively low prices, with savings of up to 90% off the cost of many well known products found in your local chemist.

Chemist Direct is growing rapidly. We are the UK’s leading online chemist and currently employ over 50 members of staff.

In addition to our great news I am also pleased to announce that I will be on the judging panel for this year’s Startups Awards. Following our success at the awards in 2008 where we were named Retailer of the Year, I am very excited at the prospect of judging a variety of new pioneering businesses.

I would like to take this opportunity to say big thank you to all of the Chemist Direct team, and of course you, our loyal customers.

The eagerly awaited first report from the Government’s Digital Inclusion team, just published, makes interesting reading. These government baked reports seldom offer anything of note. However, these findings, commissioned by Martha Lane Fox, the digital entrepreneur famous for co-founding lastminute.com, are different. Lane Fox was tasked representing people not yet online (10 million apparently!) and creating a plan to bring the web to the socially disadvantaged.

The report was packed with a raft of new statistics highlighting just how important internet retailing has become.

It found that all households without the internet are missing out on an average saving of £560 per year. This is because it is cheaper to pay bills online and shop around for the best deals. Even just a calculation on the back of an envelope shows that four million economically disadvantaged families are missing out on savings of over £1 billion a year, which is staggering.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, commissioned by Lane Fox to carry out the research, also estimated that internet literate can earn an average increase in their lifetime earnings of over £8,000 – the price of a small family car (if bought over the internet!)

In conclusion? It highlights the economic argument behind getting people to use the internet to take advantage of the massive savings on offer (with companies like Chemist Direct leading the way). With the falling price in computer hardware, rise in computer literacy, and an almost total broadband coverage across the UK, these are now exciting times to be an internet retailer.

With no end in site from this very cold weather, there is still high demand for multi vitamins, health supplements and treatments for colds and flu, and many of our customers are telling us the their stocks for the winter have already run out and they're coming back for more. We've also seen a huge sale in hot water bottles!

It seems daft to think spring is just around the corner, but with that in mind we're already seeing a rise in customers ordering slimming products and supplements as you begin to think about those beach bodies in four months time! Check out some great deals on that front over the next few weeks.

Finally, I'm delighted to say that Chemist Direct has been selected as a 2010 'Smarta 100' winner!

Smarta is a highly influential business website for entrepreneurs and start ups so we are delighted to have been recognised in this way. Judges included Dragons' Den star Deborah Meaden.

It's a great start to the new decade which cements our position as Europe's leading online chemist. A big thank you to all the Chemist Direct team, and, of course, you, our loyal customers.

This time of the year is always a busy period for Chemist Direct, with the usual increase in sales of potions and lotions to treat colds, coughs and viruses. It's also that period when people have New Year resolutions, from giving up smoking, to dieting and exercising more. All this means my team has been hard at work. The plunging temperatures has also meant we've had extra demand for things like hot water bottles, and we've even seen customers calling our pharmacists to ask about chilblains - a very Victorian ailment! Bandages and plasters are selling well. We saw a spike at the beginning of the year directly after the snow hit the UK. People may have been having fun, but that didn't stop them falling over in the ice.

The other exciting news for 2010 is the launch of our sister site www.stationerydirect.co.uk aimed at providing thousands of stationery products at up to 90% off those prices found in other stationery outlets. The UK stationery and writing instruments market is estimated to be worth approximately £2.5bn, so it is a big market. By undercutting competitors and offering low cost prices, we hope to take on the big players. Watch this space on how it goes!

I had a rare night off this week when I took a few hours out to attend the opening of an exhibition at the Oxo Gallery in London, showcasing portraits taken by Rankin, the photographer, of all the winners of the BT Essence of the Entrepreneur Award, for which I was awarded Male Entrepreneur of the Year for 2010. Guests at the exhibition opening included Peter Jones, the Dragons’ Den entrepreneur, and Claire Young, runner up in last year’s Apprentice. As well as having chance to meet some really fantastic and talented entrepreneurs, it was fun to receive congratulations from Peter, who revealed he will be in Dragons’ Den again for the new series this year.