Online Home Shop (OHS) has opened a vast new 327,000 sq ft warehouse on Trafford Park, the historic industrial estate in Manchester, marking a major step in the family-owned homewares retailer’s rapid expansion. The facility replaces multiple previous sites across Greater Manchester that the company said suffered from “historic capacity restraints”.
New site unlocks logistics capacity
The new warehouse, located at the Electric Park site on Trafford Park, provides the third-generation business with approximately 45,000 pallet spaces — a scale that allows OHS to ship up to six million orders this year. Chief executive Moshe Cohen said the move was a “significant milestone” that reflected the company’s commitment to investing in infrastructure to support its growth. “This additional capacity will help us operate more efficiently and continue delivering the high level of service our customers expect,” he added.
OHS, which traces its roots to 1952 when it began as Pin Mill Textiles supplying home textiles to UK and Irish retailers, shifted to an online-only model about a decade ago. It now sells budget-friendly homeware, soft furnishings, home textiles, and has expanded into garden, furniture and clothing lines from its headquarters in Worsley. The company has no physical stores. The new Trafford Park base consolidates warehouses that had previously been scattered around the region, most of them in Worsley, and is intended to streamline distribution for the fast-growing e-commerce operation.
The landlord of the new facility is Oxenwood Real Estate, a property investment and management firm that acquired the Electric Park site. Rafi Margulies of Capre — who is a senior surveyor at Metis Real Estate Advisors, specialising in investment and development — advised OHS on securing the lease. B8RE, DTRE and JLL acted for Oxenwood in the deal.
Dozens of new jobs planned
The move is expected to create dozens of jobs. OHS said the new centre “provides significant job opportunities to grow the current headcount from 200 people to over 300” — an increase of more than 100 roles. The company’s workforce was already expanding rapidly: in the 12 months to June 2023 it doubled from 75 to 150 employees. Trafford Park, one of Europe’s largest industrial estates covering about 4.7 square miles and home to around 1,400 businesses employing 40,000 people, already hosts major names such as Kellogg’s, Unilever, L’Oréal, Adidas and DHL. Its transport links — including the M60 and M602 motorways and the Metrolink tramline — have been cited by OHS as key to efficient distribution.
Financial growth continues
The new warehouse comes as OHS reports buoyant financial results. In the 12 months to 31 January 2025, turnover grew 24.6% to £59.5m, with pre-tax profit rising from £4.18m to £4.95m, according to the company’s most recent accounts filed at Companies House. Directors attributed sales growth on the OHS website to “increasing the customer base, repeat purchases, a growing core business and expanding into new product categories, particularly in garden and furniture”. They added that the company “continues to grow significantly across several key online marketplaces”.
Beyond the public accounts, OHS reported record gross sales of £61m for that financial year — a 28% year-on-year increase. In the first half of the current financial year (ending January 2026), sales rose more than 60% compared with the same period a year earlier. The company now expects revenues to surpass £85m for the full year. Its performance has earned it a place in The Sunday Times 100 list of the fastest-growing private UK companies for two consecutive years.
The UK homeware market, estimated to be worth between £17.5bn and £22bn, has proved resilient, with almost 90% of consumers engaging with the sector in 2024, and forecasters predicting it will reach £27.09bn by 2030. Online retail is increasingly outcompeting the offline market, driven by convenience, competitive pricing and wider product ranges — factors that have underpinned OHS’s growth. The company, which recently opened a new £6m headquarters at its Pin Mill Textiles site in Worsley — officially opened by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham in June 2023 — also has ambitions to expand into Europe and the United States.
