Ning Li, founder of online furniture retailer Made.com has had his eye on Europe for some time. At the end of last year he launched a website in Germany and he‘s not showing any signs of slowing down, with the ambition to rival Swedish furniture maker IKEA.
“To be a market leader in Europe for furniture, Germany is a key step,” Made.com‘s CEO told The Telegraph. “The market in Europe is highly fragmented. Only Ikea has broken out beyond its national borders.”
Germany is the largest market for homewares in Europe, worth around £35bn and Li wants to tap the “coveted market”, on a mission to turn Made.com into “the number one destination for home design”.
The high end furniture e-tailer is challenging the homewares giants, IKEA, John Lewis and DFS by pushing into Europe and expansion into Germany would be achieved with minimum investment because the new market would be kept buoyant from Made‘s existing logistics centre in France.
Made.com went overseas in 2012 and as of this year, sales to France, Italy, the Netherlands, and now Germany are predicted to generate 30% of revenues.
According to The Telegraph ¸Li said he was confident growth would continue at this rate but if the German market took off, 2015 revenues could be considerably higher than the £71m estimated.
