Buy4Now’s annual profits up 33pc


22 May 2007

Irish-based e-commerce and online retail service provider Buy4Now has announced a group turnover of €6.85m for 2006-2007, up 33pc from last year’s results of €5.1m.

Originally set up in 2000 with the financial backing of Superquinn and Eircom among others, Buy4Now first provided an online Irish shopping portal but then expanded to software and e-commerce services.

As part of its expansion, the e-commerce services alone now generate 75pc of the group’s revenue, and 38pc of this year’s revenue was brought in from US operations.

In the past year, Buy4Now has landed two large US contracts: the New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregan and Lunds & Byerly’s in Minneapolis, valued at €5.5m.

The company forecasts that it will transact US$100m in online sales in 2007 from their US online grocery partners alone.

Domestically, general retail sales with Irish partners were up 25pc from last year, while online grocery shopping increased by nearly 20pc.

Currently, the online shopping portal at buy4now.ie registers 4,000 new customers a month with an overall total of 170,000 registered.

Visitors to the site were clocked at 3.9 million in 2005-2006, which rose to 5.56m in the 2006-2007 period.

Buy4Now is already partnered with large Irish retailers such as Arnotts, Atlantic Homecare, Eason’s and Sam McCauley Chemists, but has added new partners this year in the form of Heatons, Rock Interiors and Birchalls Gift Store.

In Christmas 2006 alone, 633,872 site visits were recorded.

The company has also invested in a new development centre in Dundrum which opened last September and currently employs 30 people.

Ali Murdoch, chief executive of Buy4Now, said: “We achieved our objective of substantially growing our e-tail solutions business, with 75pc of business revenues coming from software development and ASP related business, while enhancing our position in the Irish market by providing the Irish shopping public with a single central location for their online shopping requirements.”

By Marie Boran