Industry e-commerce Owner Barclay Brothers Founded 2009 Parent organization Shop Direct Group | Predecessor Littlewoods Direct Website www.very.co.uk Area served United Kingdom | |
 | ||
Type Online brand of Shop Direct Products Clothing, home accessories, toys, gaming Key people Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay Headquarters Speke, United Kingdom, Liverpool, United Kingdom, United Kingdom Profiles | ||
Very (also known as Very.co.uk) is a British online retailer with headquarters in Speke, Liverpool. The brand was launched in the UK in July 2009 as part of Shop Direct. Very had formerly been known as Littlewoods Direct.
Contents
History
The original Littlewoods brand was a shopping catalogue and retail business headquartered in Liverpool, and was bought by the Barclay brothers in 2002. In 2009, Littlewoods Direct was rebranded as Veryworld.co.uk, shifting its focus to online retailing and a younger market. The website launched officially in July 2009. A year later a mobile enabled version of the site was launched, upgrading to include video and images in 2011. In the first quarter of 2013/14, mobile sales accounted for over a third of total online sales.
Partnerships and promotion
Very makes extensive use of both celebrity endorsements and product placement on television and other media. Holly Willoughby and Fearne Cotton have acted as faces of the site, creating branded fashion collections and appearing in adverts. Other names who have worked with the brand include Jameela Jamil and Diana Vickers. In December 2013, former Girls Aloud member Kimberley Walsh became a celebrity designer for the brand.
Very has sponsored V music festival, also offering a delivery service to the festival sites in 2012. It has also sponsored Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 5, with branded, 'click-to-buy' product placement.