A new etail site, backed my ecommerce entrepreneur Brent Hoberman, has launched in the UK with a model aiming to save customers money on furniture by ordering directly from the manufacturer.

Made.com is the brainchild of entrepreneur Ning Li, co-founder of Myfab.com, a similar etail operation in France that he sold last year.

The site shows customers a picture of products and asks them to vote for their favourites. The most popular are then produced and orders are placed with the manufacturer and sent to the UK directly. The saving comes from the lack of logistics, inventory and wastage costs and gives new designers a chance to try their goods with consumers in a relatively risk-free way.

Made.com has received £2.5m from investors including Hoberman.

Li grew Myfab.com to sales of £20m in the first two years of trading and hopes to achieve the same success in the UK with Made.com.

“It is always a good time to start a business in a crisis environment,” said Li. “Consumers are very price sensitive and this model is proven to work in France and Germany.”

Made.com will look at targeting other markets such as the US if the business does well here.

Li is confident there is an available niche in the market. “There are very few pure online furniture players,” he said.

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