Business booming for Berkshire-based Natural Baby Shower

Business is booming at Natural Baby Shower, the eco-friendly nursery goods company, with turnover expected to be more than £30 million this year compared to £16 million in 2020.

The Bracknell-headquartered company was started by couple Clifton Vaughan and Victoria Hampson 18 years ago after they found they could not source the sustainable natural baby products they wanted for their children in the UK.

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Sales have grown 75 per cent in the last three years alone and the firm has more than doubled staff to 75. The parents of three said a key part of the success had been bringing in software automation for ordering and stock control.

Vaughan explained how they got the idea for the business after their first child Dylan was born. They could not find the baby products in the UK which had been available in New Zealand where they were previously living.

"We have grown from just the two of us at the kitchen table at home to a team of over 75 employees and have just moved into a new warehouse in Bracknell that is big enough for us to triple our sales and still not move," he said.

"We carefully choose the very best products from more than 125 brands and pride ourselves on the very best customer service.

"We understand that running a business can have an impact on the natural environment so we ship in as few deliveries as possible, only use sustainable materials and source products with lifespans that go the distance."

The company has now brought in software automation for its ordering and stock control from Brightpearl and Inventory Planner.

"We have a pick-and-pack warehouse which uses Brightpearl software to handle all our orders. It is so efficient that we can deliver most items the next day if they are ordered by up to 4pm," said Vaughan.

"I have been with Brightpearl for ten years and it is right in the middle of my tech stack giving me accurate figures on my orders, financials and stock.

"We then push all that data into the Inventory Planner software so that we can generate accurate information on the stock we require in future. It means our whole sales process is automated through these two key pieces of software.

"Prior to this kind of automation we would be selling products which we hadn’t yet ordered, so customers were waiting longer than we would have liked for their orders," he said.

"Our purchasing team works really closely with Inventory Planner and it is crucial to running an efficient and accurate stock forecasting operation.

"That is where you can quickly come stuck as a business - by over ordering and not having close control on stock."

As well as the successful website which generates 95% of sales, the couple who live in Ottershaw, also run a babycare shop in Bagshot. Their children are Dylan, 19, who has just started university, Marley, 17, and Lola 12.

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