New website to drive growth in the US for Wave Direct

An inflatable hot tub retailer based in the North East has launched a new website for the US market.

Wave Direct, which grew exponentially last year as demand for foam rigid hot tubs soared over lockdown, is hoping to scale up sales in America after launching its new website.

Originally a side business for directors Dan Luper and Tom Jeffrey, Wave Direct posted 13 million in revenue in 2020.

This was 2700 per cent more that its original projected goal.

Building on this performance, the US site, built collaboratively with Middlesbrough-based tech company Aero, is part of Wave’s large scale-up strategy with the end goal of creating country-specific websites worldwide.

Having already made £1 million worth of sales in the US last year, the company hopes that its immersive new site and augmented reality shopping tool will continue to bring them success overseas.

Wave Direct CEO Dan Luper explains that the augmented reality tool allows customers to gain an understanding of what products look like in real life.

He said: “Customers want to visualise products in their home and garden before they purchase, which is why the feature has become such a prominent part of the new web design.

“If customers are undecided, they can take a snapshot of the hot tub within the AR experience and save the products for later in their wish list.”

Gary Bratton, ecommerce manager at Wave Direct, added: “This my 18th year in ecommerce and in all that time I have never worked directly with a website that has such a strong mix of style, usability and performance as our new flagship Aero site.

“We’re so proud of it that we’ll be rolling out this template across all of our new global domains in the coming months.”