Vancouver-based Article, a leading online modern furniture company, saw revenue growth of 45 per cent year-over-year in 2021 as the company has expanded its logistics network to support further growth.
“Investments in our fulfillment network, growth of our Vietnam office, and executive hires are among many recent company milestones that support our pursuit to build the easiest way to create a beautiful space,” said Aamir Baig, co-founder and CEO of Article.
“We anticipate the year ahead will be challenging for a number of reasons. Tailwinds created by the pandemic are subsiding and global supply chain disruptions are likely to continue for the immediate term. I’m confident we will continue to capitalize on the opportunity in front of us through the team’s collective determination and expertise.”
Nick Bozikis, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, said the past year’s growth was similar growth to what the company experienced in the year prior.
“We’ve had a couple of really strong years through the pandemic. Certainly from a scale standpoint we’ve achieved scale in this sector now and have continued to kind of deepen our supply chain reach because of that,” he said.
“We are now at the stage where we’re really kind of out there competitive and getting to be a significant player in this space.”
“We’ve had really good growth from the outset and then the past couple of years we’ve had some COVID tailwinds so it’s been phenomenal.”
Since launching in 2013, the company has delivered over one million orders to customers across the U.S. and Canada.
The company reached several significant milestones in 2021:
- Delivered its one millionth order since the company launched its website in 2013;
- Opened three new fulfillment centres in Houston, Vancouver and Chicago, which increased the company’s total warehouse space to over 1,860,000 square feet;
- Launched Article’s in-house delivery program – the Article Delivery Team – in new cities: Boston, San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Portland, Charlotte, Houston, and Chicago. The Article Delivery Team currently delivers over half of all orders;
- Named one of Canada’s top growing companies by The Globe and Mail for the third year in a row;
- Grew team to more than 1,300 employees worldwide; and
- Doubled office headcount in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to support closer manufacturer relationships.
Article also added two executives to its leadership team – Mohammad Nejad-Sattary as the company’s first Senior Vice President of Technology and Matthew Ross, Vice President of Logistics, will oversee the company’s logistics network of 17 fulfillment centres and delivery stations across Canada and the U.S.
“Our view was always that covering North America made sense. So covering all of the US and Canada. The business has developed, and has pretty consistently been, kind of 85 per cent US and 15 per cent Canada. It’s how we think about the business today,” said Bozikis. “There’s some ebbs and flows.
“I see a great opportunity for us to continue to serve the customer and be customer-obsessed. We’ve been pushing really hard to try to keep inventory levels strong, to continue to serve customers quickly. With supply chain being an issue globally, we think that’s really important to continue to invest and provide a high level of service for the customer.
“Our view is we continue to serve this category that is under-served. You’ve got great brands like IKEA who kind of serve the low end. You’ve got great brands like, especially in the US, Restoration Hardware who is serving the high end. We’re actually filling a nice gap in the middle where there isn’t a great trusted brand in there that’s serving customer needs and our goal is to continue to build that out and really make sure customers have access to high quality product that delivers good value and our view is just to continue to grow the customer base, introduce as many new people to the product and continue to deepen our reach on the supply chain side so we can keep delivering more and more value over time.”
