Ash Young, the MD of Sheffield’s Evoluted has achieved a £1m turnover for his new ecommerce business.
Young set up CarMats.co.uk 9 months ago, during the first lockdown, after seeing income “dry up” at Evoluted.
“I had always wanted to start up a new e-commerce site but I just didn’t really have the time along with running a busy digital agency,” he explained.
“When lockdown hit it was a very strange time. I found that a lot of client work dried up and I didn’t have anyone to go out and meet with or clients to talk to. Many businesses had decided to cut their marketing spend or hold off until things started to get better.
“So it was the perfect time for me to look at the site I wanted to set up. I had looked into the car mat industry before and knew that was what I wanted to do.”
He built the website himself and sought help from his wife, to assist with customer support.
“I thought that we would hit £1 million in sales, but not for a long time. It’s absolutely bonkers that we have done this in nine months,” he continued.
“We’re doing an average of 250 orders a day, which is crazy. I think the reliance on online shopping recently has really helped us as people now can’t go into a shop to buy car mats like they might have before.”
On reaching the £1m mark, he donated the entire revenue from that day (£11k) to local charity Ashgate Hospicecare.
He’s now targeting a £3m turnover for 2021.
