Hebden Bridge businessman visits Amazon ahead of sales rush

William Vaughan is the Managing Director of e-commerce business Bluefin Trading, a West Yorkshire company that operates Bluefin Fitness, Bluefin SUP and Bluefin Active.

Bluefin Trading specialises in home fitness equipment, wellbeing, water sports and the outdoors.

Bluefin Trading, which has been running since 2013, boasts a team of young digital experts with a family-driven ethos, which fuels the company’s ambitions, creativity and ability to develop new skills.

Bluefin Trading’s team operates from West Yorkshire and Barcelona to Vancouver and East Asia. In the last two years, Bluefin Trading has grown from a staff of four in a home-office to over thirty employees, split between the continent and a modern, purpose-built office facility in the Calderdale hills.

William’s company, which is on track to meet its £30m sales target in 2020, sells products on Amazon to customers in the UK and around the world. Through Amazon, Bluefin Trading currently exports products to Germany, its biggest market, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the US. Bluefin Trading will soon expand into Canada and Australia through selling on Amazon.

Bluefin Trading uses Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), a solution that enables SMEs reach more customers with benefits like fast Prime delivery and easier selling across Europe. SMEs send their products to Amazon, and the company takes care of storage, delivery to customers, customer service and returns handling.

To see how products like his are fulfilled, William made a special visit to Amazon’s Doncaster iPort fulfilment centre this week for a private tour of the site ahead of Amazon Prime Day. During the visit, the Hebden Bridge man met some of the team responsible for helping small businesses like his to grow in the UK and across the globe.

“Selling our products on Amazon has been a big factor in helping Bluefin Trading expand here in the UK and across the globe and it’s great to meet some of the team who are helping businesses like mine to grow,” said William.

“Creating innovative new products is my passion and by using programmes like Fulfilment by Amazon, I have more time to work on designs of future products while a lot of the heavy lifting is being done by the team at Amazon.”

William’s visit to Amazon was ahead of the annual Prime Day sales event, which this year aimed to support small businesses.