Last checked at 1 Oct 2009 07:00
Flying Brands Limited ("Flying Brands" or the "Company")
Strategic changes at Flying Flowers and Appointment of a new Sales & Marketing Director
Flying Brands today announces a number of strategic changes to its Flying Flowers business and the appointment of a new sales & marketing director.
With effect from 1 October, Flying Flowers will move its flower packing and dispatch operations for its postal range from Jersey to the UK. These functions will be outsourced to Top Flora, a leading distributor of flowers in the UK. Top Flora has supplied stems for the Flying Flowers' courier range since April of this year and during that period the Company has seen a significant improvement in the overall quality of its stems and a reduction in quality- related customer complaints from around 6% to less than 1%.
This switch of operations to the UK will allow Flying Flowers to offer a much wider range of stems and to improve greatly the quality and freshness of our bouquets. It will also allow us to offer a courier delivery service on all our range of bouquets. We have also entered into a strategic partnership with Teleflorist, the second largest relay network in the UK, to launch a range of local florist bouquets. This will enable us to offer same day delivery for the first time.
The switch from Jersey to UK fulfillment will bring our postal bouquets within the ambit of the UK VAT regime and this will inevitably lead to a short-term decline in reported revenues as we will not be increasing the price of our bouquets to reflect the addition of VAT. However, as a result of these strategic changes, Flying Brands expects to see growth in the number of its active customers and that in the medium term the increase in sales arising from a more widely appealing product range and improved delivery options, together with the expected decrease in product costs and reduction in waste and replacements, will more than compensate for the loss of Low Value Consignment Relief.
Flying Brands is also delighted to announce that Marie Myles will join the group as sales & marketing director from Experian, where she is currently director of marketing consulting services. Marie has wide experience of direct marketing and database analytics and has also worked in senior sales roles. Her appointment is expected to commence by the beginning of November. This is not currently a main board appointment.
Stephen Cook, CEO of Flying Brands, said:
"We are proud of our traditional range of postal bouquets and these changes will enable us to offer even better quality and value for money. The introduction of the new services also means that we will be able to offer the widest range of delivery options available in the UK and this in turn will enable us to attract a much broader range of customers.
"We are also delighted to have recruited a marketing director with the standing and experience of Marie and I am confident that she will enable us to drive more value from this company's biggest asset, its customer database."
For further information, please contact:
Flying Brands Limited 0844 884 6465
Stephen Cook, Chief Executive
Anthony Gee, Finance Director
Smithfield Consultants 020 7360 4900
John Kiely
Notes to Editors
Jersey based Flying Brands Limited (LSE: FBDU) is a multi brand home shopping
group. Founded in 1981, it was admitted to the Official List of the London Stock
Exchange in 1993. The Group operates the following divisions:
* Gifts (Flying Flowers, the UK's largest flowers by post brand, despatching over 700,000 bouquets a year)
* Garden (Gardening Direct, one of the UK's largest mail order bedding plants and gardening products operations; Garden Bird Supplies, a leading provider of food and accessories for birds and other wildlife )
* Entertainment (Listen2, a mail order audio books, DVD and music distributor; Benham, the collectables specialist)
More information can be found at: www.flyingbrands.com
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