Dundee football teamwear specialist Direct Soccer wants to nearly treble its employee numbers and annual turnover in the next five years.
The firm was founded more than two decades ago by husband-and-wife team Bryce and Joyce Gibson.
The initial investment in the business was £20,000 and turnover in the first year was £150,000.
However, there has been major growth at Direct Soccer since then, with current staff numbers totalling 35 and turnover in the latest financial year expected to hit £6 million.
Joyce said: “Our outlook for the business is very optimistic.
“We are excited about the opportunities that growth will bring as we continue on our path of success.
“Our five-year plan is for £15m turnover, to employ around 90 staff and ship 1,000 orders per day.
“We want a wider product range to cater for not only our customers buying kit, but also for our individual customers.”
Direct Soccer kicks off
The business opened in 1997, trading as Sportstyle in a shop in Broughty Ferry.
The venture changed its name to Direct Soccer in 2002 when the company began trading online.
Joyce said the couple had identified the demise of general sports shops and saw the football kit market as niche.
They saw growth opportunities online and in the area of personalisation, offering clubs a convenient one-stop shop for all their kit supplies.
Direct Soccer moved to a purpose-built warehouse in Broughty Ferry in 2010.
In 2019, it extended these premises at West Pitkerro Industrial Estate – tripling the footprint by increasing warehouse, production and office space.
Robot pickers for efficiency
The company has made a big investment in its Autostore – a flexible, automated warehouse solution.
Joyce explained: “It’s a cube engineered storage system where the robots work on top of a grid.
“They pick customer orders and deliver the goods to our pickers at ports where the goods are dispatched or moved into production if personalisation is required.
“This technology allows us to pick six times faster than previous levels with high levels of accuracy.
“The grid system enables us to expand as we grow whilst still operating and our seven robots use the same amount of energy as a vacuum cleaner.
“An unexpected benefit has been the ability to adhere to social distancing whilst still picking customer orders due to its goods-to-person setup.”
Direct Soccer market leader
Joyce said Direct Soccer is a market leader in the UK for teamwear and sits in the top five retailers with major brands such as Nike, Adidas, Mitre and Joma.
She added: “In addition, we are in the top position in Scotland with all these brands.”
Direct Soccer currently ships around 400 orders per day.
The firm’s customers fall into two main categories – clubs and individuals.
Its club business covers grassroots football teams from large community clubs through to small individual clubs with one or two teams.
It also supplies kit for many other sports clubs and schools and colleges throughout the UK.
Staying afloat through Covid-19
In addition, Direct Soccer has a growing number of customers who shop for sportswear and leisurewear for individual use.
Joyce said many of these customers shop on its sister site which offers next-day delivery with limited personalisation.
Three-quarters of the company’s sales are in England, with London being the biggest market.
Joyce said Covid-19 initially had a massive effect on the business as all sports stopped and sales dried up overnight.
She added: “We had to furlough 75% of staff and did have to make a small number of redundancies.
“We did, however, quickly switch all our marketing and advertising efforts from clubs to the individual shopper.
“We also ran a number of campaigns such as ‘stay safe keep training’.
“This helped keep the company operating.”
