Success for Northampton toy shop as online sales go through the roof during coronavirus lockdown

One Northampton company has been extremely successful during the coronavirus lockdown by selling mostly toys online.

Squizzas has moved into a new fulfilment centre in Abington and doubled its staff numbers to cope with the huge demand while the public was stuck indoors.

The shop in Wellingborough Road remains closed though as co-founder Luke Bedden said it is too small and not bring in as much money as the website.

"Amazon stopped accepted some deliveries into warehouses and we're a toy retailer so all toy orders from Amazon came to us which put our sales through the roof," he said.

"We doubled the staff numbers and had our best month. It's a bad time but it has been pretty good for us."

Squizzas was set up five years ago by Luke and his friend Sean French, initially selling whatever they could find on eBay and Amazon from their Abington homes.

Growth has been steady with online and 'bricks and mortar' shops opening but orders rocketed from mid-March when schools were closed and people were told to stay at home.

Luke said: "We were doing really well before but since the middle of March, our sales have gone mad."

Squizzas sales increased tenfold with board games going up by 5,000 per cent, arts and crafts by 4,500 per cent, bubble solutions by 2,500 per cent and hot tubs by 2,000 per cent.

Overall more than 100,000 orders shipped out during lockdown and last month the company achieved its first-ever million pound month.

But Luke admitted it was 'a bit of a nightmare' at the beginning with too few employees and some being off work with Covid-19 affecting the customer service part of the business.

"It's been difficult, the customer service side has been very difficult as we've been short-staffed and people are at home so they get in touch more," he said.

"So that's been difficult for us but we have adapted and got more people doing that with three more positions opening up soon."

March to May is usually the quietest time of the year for toy retailers like Squizzas but this year has changed everything, according to Luke.

The co-founder said many struggled with their suppliers being unable to fulfil orders but fortunately they had a lot of stock in their warehouse so were able to take advantage.

However, the success online means the Wellingborough Road shop has stayed closed after the lockdown.

"We're still ever so busy and quite shocked," he said.

"We have got a shop but we're not bothered to reopen it as it was doing so little compared to online anyway and it's so small we can't fit two colleagues in safely."