Sunday Times 100 Fastest-Growing Companies in the UK: Breakdown

Sunday Times 100 Fastest-Growing Companies in the UK: Breakdown

The 2022 Sunday Times 100, an annual celebration of the UK’s entrepreneurial achievements and a showcase of the fastest-growing private companies, is live. While standout brands like AYBL, Absolute Collagen, and Ooni made the cut with impressive growth rates of up to 359%, and our client, A Collected Man, with a 113% growth, was included, we dug a little deeper into the rankings to uncover the reason behind these fast growth rates. Here’s our insights…

The Sunday Times 100, in collaboration with research partner Beahurst, is an annual ranking of the UK’s fastest-growing private companies. While growth is the primary factor, it’s not the only criteria, with profitability, sales revenue, and tenure all considered when narrowing down the top 100. You can learn more about the research criteria at The Sunday Times.

We took a closer look at the data, and it looks like Shopify’s out on top, with the e-commerce platform the preferred choice for powering the UK’s fastest-growing company’s online stores.

9 of the UK’s top 10 fastest-growing DTC companies use Shopify (Plus) to power their e-commerce experience.

While correlation isn’t causation, it’s hard to deny some link between growth success and platform choice, and high-growth DTC brands’ trust in Shopify is remarkably consistent. To understand some of the factors at play here, we looked at what some of these fast-growing brands had to say about why Shopify supports growth.

“Shopify’s app ecosystem is crucial to our business. We can easily build a tech stack which helps us to focus on our customers, product, and brand”.

Darcy May Laceby, Co-Founder of Absolute Collagen

Absolute Collagen, #4 in the Sunday Times Top 100, grew by 252% over the last 3 years. Their focus on customer experience is often cited as their primary reason for replatforming to Shopify, which enables brands to focus on goals like customer experience by reducing the time, costs, and energy required for managing their e-commerce stores.

By combining tech partners, Gorgias, Recharge, and Stamped.io, available in the Shopify app store, Absolute Collagen invested heavily in their customers introducing exceptional customer experience, reviews, and subscriptions - which make up 60% of their revenue.?

“Shopify gives us unlimited access to revenue. It’s always on, and we never have any outages. Its ease of use is one of the main benefits for our team.”

The stability and scalability of Shopify is also a key factor for enabling growth for fast-growing UK company, and We Make Websites alumni, Ooni. Listed as #10 in the Top 100, Ooni was able to scale to impressive revenues of ￡208m with 175% growth over 3 years. Here’s what they had to say on Shopify:?

“Shopify is a reliable, managed ecosystem. We don’t worry about downtime, which has allowed us to keep our development team lean. We grew massively last year without having to worry about scalability and that put our mind at ease.”

Ben Thompson, Digital Product Manager, Ooni

With growth comes challenges, but with Shopify as your e-commerce platform, you can scale with demand and continue to sell without disruption despite rapidly increasing traffic and order volumes. Words echoed by Daniel Marsden, Co-Founder at Lounge Underwear. Daniel and Melanie were able to start their lingerie brand with just ￡1,000 and now achieve revenues upwards of ￡42m in only 7 years.?

“Shopify Plus has been able to scale and grow with us—we haven’t outgrown it like other platforms we’ve used. It allowed us to create a website that talked to people in a way that matched our values and aspirations as a brand.”

Daniel Marsden, Co-Founder,

Lounge Underwear

While Shopify can’t be attributed as the single reason for growth for these brands, it’s clear the platform has set them up for success. Enabling them to focus on business goals and customer relationships, be it through their app integrations, services, international offering, and headless implementation, to name a few. And with 18 of the 33 DTC brands listed using Shopify as their e-commerce platform, plus a total growth rate 32% higher than competing platforms like Magento, we expect more DTC brands to join this list next year and Shopify to be their platform of choice.

If you’re considering migrating to Shopify Plus, reach out to discuss your plan with our expert team.?

Author: Jordan Philip, Sales Consultant, We Make Websites