A YOUNG Pembrokeshire entrepreneur has taken inspiration from one of the world’s most successful companies to launch a new business amid a pandemic.

Jack Lear had built a solid business specialising in global sales of fancy dress goods from a warehouse in the county but, with the cancellation of parties and celebrations, sales at Bodysocks stalled.

It was a make or break time for the company yet, in the style of a true entrepreneur, 26-year-old Jack used the knowledge and expertise he had gained in running a warehouse-based business to invest £500,000 and launch bargainfox.com, an online sales platform specialising in discounted consumer goods, based at Pembroke Dock.

The workforce has increased from eight to 33 and Jack, from Manorbier, plans to recruit another 12 staff this autumn.

Bargainfox.com draws on much of the experience he has gained from running Bodysocks but its reach is much more ambitious – the fancy-dress goods market worldwide is worth billions whilst for consumer and household goods it is trillions.

Jack, a former pupil of Greenhill School, Tenby, said:

We are taking inspiration from Amazon, one of the best warehousing companies in the world.’’

When lockdown kicked in in March, he had time on his hands to contemplate new ideas.

He knew his company had a good skillset to diversify into another sector.

“We were quite logical in our approach, we looked at what we were good at, what skills and knowledge we had. We are good are operating a warehouse and we are good at digital marketing.

“We looked at who was doing well, who was recruiting new staff, and Amazon was an obvious example.’’

Jack’s decision in July 2019 to buy the contents of a Manchester-based warehouse run by a failed party goods company gave him a good knowledge base for establishing the new business model.

“There were 200,000 products in that warehouse with 15,000 different product codes, we had to update our software to manage that level of stock,’’ he says.

That gave us the skill to process tens of thousands of products and to be able to locate each of those individually in a warehouse.’’

Bargainfox.com has contracts with retailers to receive customer returns and liquidation stock – items that are new or ‘as new’ but sometimes with damaged packaging.

On average, the 50,000 items in stock at any one time are discounted by 40% from the recommended retail price.

Jack is a strategic thinker and this characteristic is evident throughout the business.

Each item is individually checked, photographed and uploaded to the BargainFox.com website by the team of processors.

There are also pickers who collect the items from the floor to ceiling shelving with two electric order pickers that have sufficient elevation to reach the top shelf, packers to prepare orders and a restocking team.

One of the first items sold was a beard trimmer, and sales of these soared in lockdown with men forced into DIY trimming.

All items have a 45-day quality guarantee, there is a 10% cashback offering on the first order, available as a cash balance on a customer’s bargainfox.com account, and there is no delivery charge on orders over the value of £20. There is also a click and collect service from the warehouse on London Road, Pembroke Dock.

Jack sums up his typical customer type as a bargain hunter. “They don’t mind a damaged box, they are interested in what is inside and that they are getting it at a heavily discounted price.’’

As he takes time to reflect on the birth of the new business, he admits the pandemic forced him to be driven and focussed.

It was an uncomfortable place to be at the start of lockdown, we had signed a contract to buy 20,000 fancy dress costumes and had no market for those at the time but that experience forced us to change and I am glad we made that change.

“It was a bigger risk to do nothing at all, I would rather fail trying than sit back and watch the business die.’’