London, 10 March 2022 – Olsam Group (“Olsam” or “the Company”), an ecommerce platform that acquires and scales category leading e-commerce businesses, has hired Steven Wait as Director of eCommerce. This new appointment comes following Olsam’s recent $165m raise and the acquisition of US based aggregator FlyWheel Commerce, as the business looks to continue to scale their portfolio of category leading brands.
Steven Wait joins Olsam as Director of eCommerce after almost five years at Mountain Warehouse where he was their Head of UK eCommerce, leading all commercial and operational activities on 16 eCommerce marketplaces across three continents as well as their UK D2C channel. Steven joined Mountain Warehouse from Oliver Wyman, a top tier, cross-industry management consultancy.
Sam, co-founder of Olsam, said: “We are delighted to welcome Steven to join the Olsam team. His experience at Mountain Warehouse, one of the UK’s leading sports and outdoor brands, where he led both their marketplace and UK D2C commercial strategy & new market entry, overseeing a portfolio of thousands of products, strengthens our operations team as we look to scale our portfolio brands onto new channels globally. The demand for ecommerce talent has grown rapidly over the last few years but we have always been proud of the team we are building at Olsam and know Steven is a perfect fit.”
Steven Wait, Director of eCommerce at Olsam said: “I’m extremely excited to have joined the Olsam team as their new Director of eCommerce. Olsam is at an exciting inflection point in its growth journey, backed by outstanding company values and a brilliant team. The opportunities in the FBA-space are endless and I look forward to working with Olsam as they continue to scale within this exciting market.”
In 2021, sellers on the Amazon marketplace generated $390 billion in sales, adding nearly $90 billion net growth in a year, with sixty thousand sellers eclipsing $1 million in sales on the Amazon marketplace in 2021. The total gross merchandise volume (GMV), including sales by Amazon itself and by the marketplace, was north of $600 billion. If sales by sellers were compared to country Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Amazon marketplace would be the 37th-largest economy globally.
Firms acquiring successful brands on Amazon have attracted around $7 billion in capital over the past year, with almost 3,000 sellers in the UK hitting $1 million in turnover. With more than half (53%) of product searches now starting on Amazon, compared to 23% starting on search engines, there is a huge opportunity to scale e-commerce businesses across global marketplaces.
