13 Buy IT Direct

Revenue: £295.5m (+19%)

Net profit: 2.2% Staff: 693

This Huddersfield-based e-tailer saw "ballistic growth" last year, its CEO Nick Glynne told CRN this June as he reaffirmed plans to hit £500m revenue by 2022-23. Buy IT competes with the likes of eBuyer through its Laptops Direct and Servers Direct brands, but also punts bathrooms and furniture. A lack of new accounts mean we've had to recycle numbers for its year to 31 March 2020 for the purposes of this profile. They showed a net profit of £6.5m on revenues that rose 19 per cent to £295.5m.

Covid impact

Buy IT is betting on big growth, with Glynne characterising the Covid-fuelled online sales boom as "structural". This summer, it invested £6.5m in fitting out a half-a-million square foot warehouse in Castle Donington, which will provide roughly 80,000 extra pallet spaces as the company looks to scale up its operations.