33. Love the Sales

Founders: Stuart McClure, Mark Solomon and Dave Bishop
Launched: 2015
Website: www.lovethesales.com

Collating thousands of discounted items from hundreds of the world’s biggest retailers onto one website, Love the Sales is the e-commerce start-up that’s making it easier for savvy shoppers to save money.

A young father, co-founder Stuart McClure had his “lightbulb moment” while shopping online for his family. Looking to save money by seeking out sales items, McClure found himself getting lost while browsing among the myriad of sales sites and decided that there should be a simpler way to find discounted products on the web.

The business originally started as a side-project with McClure and co-founders Mark Solomon and Dave Bishop holding down full-time jobs while managing the site. But, after later closing a round of investment, the founders were able to leave their jobs and focus on growing the start-up.

Now showcasing around a million items each day, Love the Sales’ virtual shelves display everything from clothes and accessories to electronics, furniture and sports apparatus, aggregating discounted items from some 700 retailers across the UK, the US and Europe. On the site, you’ll find brands such as Michael Kors, House of Fraser, Currys, and Vivienne Westwood.

Love the Sales has scaled while operating with a lean team of just five employees, and its founding trio insist that, while there are certainly plenty of discount sites online, “none are as comprehensive as theirs” – with other flash sales and voucher sites typically offer outdated stock and irrelevant deals.

Over the next year, the start-up plans to continue to expand on its relatively new US and EU territories, while improving its innovative machine learning and AI capabilities.

The ultimate goal? To make Love the Sales “the very best place to shop for people looking to improve their lifestyle for less”. Jumping from the 95th spot in our 2016 Startups 100 to 33rd in this year’s list, we’re confident it will achieve this aim!