The Original Factory Shop, one of the country’s fastest growing retailers has completed an extension of it’s headquarter building in Burnley. The huge extension, which almost doubles the size of its head office to 250,000 sq ft, is an integral part of the firm’s business plan to sustain its rapid expansion plans over the next five years.
The company has 170 stores nationwide, almost double the number it had just 2 to 3 years ago. The extension of its HQ building will provide the company with the capacity to open a further 400 new stores in the coming years.
The extension was completed by Barnfield Construction, who are linked with another major development in Burnley; The Weavers Triangle.
The Original Factory Shop, which has annual revenues of more than £130m, continues to sustain rapid growth and reported double-digit profits growth in 2010 for the fifth year in a row.
Over Christmas last year the group broke its own sales records as the extreme weather boosted demand for outdoor clothing and wellies. Stores racked up the company’s highest-ever sales in a day on December 23, only to smash this figure by 8% the following day. It sold more than 100,000 wellington boots over the Christmas period – an average of a pair every nine seconds – as the snowy weather caused an unprecedented surge in orders.
The firm is headed by Angela Spindler, former Managing Director of Debenhams and Chief of ASDA’s clothing range George. The business was founded in 1969 in Keighley, as an outlet for unsold Marks & Spencer stock, before moving to Burnley in 2007.
The Original Factory Shop has appeared in the Sunday Times Buyout Track 100 and earlier this year Angela Spindler appeared on the cover of the Manchester Evening News Business Week magazine.
There are 1000 small towns in the UK with a population of less than 20,000 which fit the profile for an Original Factory Shop store. The company employs 2,600 employees, 200 of those at its head office in Burnley.
