Orbital buys Readicut business from Administrator
19/08/2011
Orbital Group plucks Readicut from Administration
Readicut, the long established home craft business, has recently been purchased from the Administrator by Orbital Marketing Services Group.
Readicut operates three main product areas; knitting, papercraft and needlecraft, each with its own seasonal catalogue and has been outsourcing their fulfilment function to Orbital’s specialist response handling division, Orbital Response, for nearly two years. When the company went into Administration Orbital decided to buy the assets and continue serving Readicut’s database of 200,000 customers.
Nick Williams, General Manager of Orbital Response, said, “We made sure there was minimal disruption to customers throughout the administration process. Everything, including the website, carried on as normal as our call centre team knew all about Readicut’s product range. We have now established direct relationships with the product suppliers and produced our first two catalogues utilising our in-house print and mailing facilities.”
He continued, “Readicut is a well-known brand and has a loyal customer base, 60,000 which were active in the last year, with a high level of repeat purchasing. Forecasts of a return to traditional home crafts augur well for this venture and we’re excited about Readicut’s potential.”
Trading has continued whilst Orbital reviews the Readicut marketing strategy and product range as part of an overall revitalisation of the Readicut business. One of their first moves has been to update the brand by refreshing the logo design.
A design agency was briefed to develop a new brand that would work across each of the three product areas and be flexible enough to accommodate new product areas in the future.
The selected design works well across the three sub-brands and brings the Readicut brand up-to-date with a fresh new look.
Nick Williams comments, “We were delighted with the options, particularly the evolution of the iconic 'r' shape which brings all the logos together as a group and allows for varying colours and future brand extensions. The William Morris style graphic in the overall company logo works well on so many levels. The graphics ultimately chosen for use within the 'r' for each of the product logos are individual, stylish - as Readicut should be - and representative of the respective craft, whilst clearly belonging to the new Readicut family.”
