The Very Group has appointed a new non-exec chair and reported strong Christmas trading performance.
Former Walmart executive vice president Dirk Van den Berghe has joined the Liverpool-headquartered online retailer, which operates the Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com websites.
Van den Berghe joined Walmart in 2014 and was responsible for its business in Canada, China, India and Japan. He also oversaw Walmart Global Sourcing, a supply chain supporting all Walmart鈥檚 divisions in the United States and international markets.聽
During this period, Van den Berghe and his team were instrumental in realising Walmart鈥檚聽 investment in and partnership with JD.com, a leading e-commerce business in China, and in聽 developing the joint venture between Seiyu, Walmart鈥檚 subsidiary in Japan, and Rakuten, the eCommerce market leader in Japan.聽
They also realised Walmart鈥檚 $16bn investment in Flipkart, a聽 leading eCommerce and mobile payments platform in India.聽
鈥淲e are delighted to have someone of Dirk鈥檚 calibre and experience join our company as chair,鈥� said Henry Birch, group CEO at The Very Group.聽
鈥淒irk has successfully transformed and grown some of the very best companies in eCommerce, marketplaces and payments, and we believe he will make a material difference in helping us achieve our growth aspirations.聽
鈥淗e is the perfect person to lead our board and assist with strategic options that we are considering over the coming year as we enter the next important phase of the group鈥檚 development.鈥�
Meanwhile Very revealed 22% growth in retail sales for the seven weeks to 24th December 2021, which included the Black Friday promotional period, compared with the same period two years ago – the last pre-COVID Christmas.
It said its fastest order during the period was processed and despatched in 18 minutes and 32 seconds by the highly automated fulfilment centre, Skygate, which ran on 100% renewable energy during a peak trading period for the first time.
Very鈥檚 automated chatbot was used by 137,000 customers a week and helped to reduce calls into its contact centre by 17% compared with last year.
Birch said: 鈥淭hanks to the hard work and commitment of our people, we鈥檝e delivered another amazing Christmas for our customers and strong trading results for the period.聽
鈥淰ery recorded outstanding double-digit growth compared with the pre-pandemic festive season in 2019, as our customers enjoyed a more 鈥榥ormal鈥� Christmas.
鈥淭hey bought back into fashion, focused on wellness, got their hands on the latest consoles and doubled-down on Christmas decorations to make up for last year鈥檚 more muted celebrations.
鈥淲hile the next 12 months will no doubt bring challenges as we all continue to navigate life聽 around COVID-19, the last two years have shown that our model, which combines multi category digital retail with our Very Pay platform, is both highly resilient and highly relevant.
鈥淲e鈥檙e going into the new year with great momentum and are well-set to keep building on聽 our success.鈥�