Another online to omnichannel story as Gear4Music plan London store

Online to omnichannel – Another week and another online retailer has decided to take the plunge into physical sales – this seems to be quite the trend in retail at the moment – as we reported last week with Sports retailer Pro Direct – and especially in the UK – who are reportedly leading the rest of the world when it comes to omnichannel retail.

Gear4Music, the highly successful online music equipment store is capitalising on their success by developing their first physical store in London (and second in the UK) – alongside plans to float on the stock market.

The Yorkshire-based retailer announced last week that the new flagship store should be open within the next year – and that they are aiming for a location somewhere around Denmark Street, on the edge of London’s West end – an area traditionally associated with music, recording studios and music retail.

The proposed store will be somewhere in the region of 8,000 – 12,000 sq ft, which is slightly larger than their other physical store – a 9,000 sq ft showroom in York – as they continue to build on their tremendous retail success. The company generated a revenue of £24m in the year ending February 28th and report that these sales were bolstered by ‘strong international sales and buoyant Christmas trading’.

Speaking about their success, Andrew Wass, founder of Gear4Music describes the motivation behind their next move:

“2014 was an incredibly strong period for our business and we have entered 2015 in excellent shape. The next phase of our growth plans will see us invest further in our online marketing initiatives while also developing our bespoke IT platform.”

Despatching more than 4,000 orders per day, including own-brand products the company has steadily gone from strength to strength in the 12 years since their launch in 2003. With sales across 19 European countries and more than 27,000 products from 550 manufacturers in stock.

We’ll be watching with interest to see how their stock market flotation and new omnichannel approach takes off – as it seems to have proven very successful for other similar e-commerce retailers who have taken the plunge.