Ebuyer is an

electronic commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

based in

Howden Howden () is a market and minster town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies in the Vale of York to the north of the M62, on the A614 road about south-east of York and north of Goole, which lies across the Ri ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...

, England. It is the largest independent online retailer of computer and electrical goods in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. The Ebuyer website is the 210th most visited site in the United Kingdom lexa.com rankingand has 4 million registered customers.

History

Ebuyer was founded in March 2000 in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

by Paul Cusack, Mike Naylor, Steve Kay, Neeraj Patel, and Adam Ashmore – with startup capital of £250,000 from Paul Cusack, its annual turnover was in excess of £220 million by September 2005. Stuart Carlisle was its managing director (CEO) from 2014 until resigning in 2015. Paul Cusack resigned in December 2006. Ebuyer (UK) Ltd turnover in the year to 31 December 2019 was £190.5m. As of 2020, Ebuyer was owned by

Malcolm Healey Malcolm Stanley Healey (born June 1944) is a British entrepreneur. Career Healey began his career in his family's paint company. In 1982 MFI Group and Healey's company, Humber Kitchens,The Independent (1999)Corporate Profile: MFI - Step one: p ...

's West Retail Group.

Security

In July 2008, Gavin Brent, from

Holywell Holywell may refer to: * Holywell, Flintshire, Wales * Holywell, Swords, Ireland * Holywell, Bedfordshire, England * Holywell, Cambridgeshire, England * Holywell, Cornwall, England * Holywell, Dorset, England * Holywell, Eastbourne, East Susse ...

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

, North

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

admitted stealing goods worth £20,000 from the firm before returning the goods, and demanding full refunds. Brent, whose suspicious transactions were spotted by Ebuyer's security team, went on to conduct an online campaign against the company and the investigation. This included menacing Ebuyer staff and a police officer from Brent's now-defunct blog.

Barton Town F.C sponsorship

Ebuyer is the official floodlight and short sponsor of

Barton Town F.C. Barton Town Football Club is a football club based in Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, England. They are currently members of the Northern Counties East League Premier Division and play at Marsh Lane. History The club was formed as Barton To ...

from

Barton-upon-Humber Barton-upon-Humber () or Barton is a town and civil parish in North Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 11,066. It is situated on the south bank of the Humber Estuary at the southern end of the Humber Bridge. It is s ...

Controversy

During 2005 Ebuyer had significant customer service problems. Sheffield Trading Standards received 282 complaints about the company, and the customer service phone number had been removed from its website. After this, the firm promised to improve its service, and restored the customer service number to its site. Average daily telephone wait times are published. On 28 November 2011, eBuyer ran a £1 promotion via email, offering new deals on the hour until midnight. eBuyer angered customers when their website was unable to handle the extra traffic, causing it to crash. When the website did work, many customers were emailed after successfully ordering and paying for items, only to be told they were out of stock. Many customers vented their anger at the company on their Facebook page, however eBuyer ran a campaign on their customer forums in an attempt to counter the bad publicity. In December 2013, eBuyer posted pictures to Facebook of its staff wearing Christmas themed jumpers. However, a Facebook user named Phil spotted that one of the images contained a leaderboard in the background that suggested that eBuyer staff were rated on the number of returns that they reject. eBuyer responded to these accusations by stating that these were return merchandise authorizations (RMAs) avoided by providing technical advice.

References

{{Reflist, 1 Retail companies established in 1999 Internet properties established in 1999 Online retailers of the United Kingdom Companies based in the East Riding of Yorkshire 1999 establishments in the United Kingdom