Kiddicare’s overseas plans start in Nordics

The etailer, which also has one large store in Peterborough, was bought by Morrisons last month for £70m and its ecommerce platform will power Morrisons.com. Kiddicare said the deal would accelerate its own expansion plans. Its turn­over in its last financial year was £37.5m and it set out last year to accelerate to £100m in two years.

Kiddicare technology officer Simon Harrow said: “Our £100m turnover plans in the next two years are surpassed now. I think we can get more.”

Kiddicare will launch English language websites in three Scandinavian countries this month. The delivery service will take two days.

Retail Week revealed last month (February 18) that Kiddicare would go international this month, giving Morrisons its first taste of an international market.

The Morrisons deal will “turbo-charge” Kiddicare’s ambitions to sell consumable baby products such as nappies. “We are going to pick up the consumables aisle of Morrisons and put it online,” said Harrow.

Kiddicare will introduce specified-day delivery this year, a new customer relationship management system to drive targeted email marketing and in-store digital signage.

It also plans more online content and a website relaunch to enable the move into consumables.

It will strengthen its online community by letting customers upload their own videos and has plans for panel videos where three customers discuss a product. It is also talking to sites such as Mumset.com about distributing Mumsnet’s content, and is developing an iPad app.

Harrow said there were no plans for more stores at the moment.

Morrisons.com will be run from Peterborough, initially from Kiddicare’s distribution centre. It is set to launch in 2013 at the latest.

The Morrisons board will outline its plans for the website at its AGM in June, and meetings about the implementation of Kiddicare’s ecommerce platform are starting this week.