Nick Coleman, director at Buckinghamshire-based Medical Supermarket, explains why the business should win the marketing and PR category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition.
We are Medical Supermarket and we sell everything a healthcare company would ever need to buy. To keep our costs low we asked our suppliers to deliver our orders, and we only pay for them 15 days after we have been paid by our customers. This drop shipping model was unheard of in the healthcare industry.
Our company started in 2010 when our founders Nick and Udhi were based in their spare room and used credit cards to fund the company. To save money as we’ve grown we’ve used freecycle.com to get free office furniture. In 2014 we moved into a warehouse and borrowed a corner space of an existing unit and borrowed everything from forklifts to office furniture. Controlling our costs in such a careful way has enabled us to invest all our time and money into customer-facing activities, helping us grow our top line year after year.
This attention to funding means two months ago we were able to move to our own warehouse in Aylesbury where we now turn over £5m and employ 17 staff.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
