TradeFayre didn’t begin with a business plan, a boardroom or even a particularly grand ambition.
It began with a packet of shaver foils for my beaten-up old Philips plug-in shaver.
While visiting the United States, I stumbled across replacement parts for a shaver I used at the time. Nothing particularly exciting about that, you might think. But what caught my attention was the price.
They were a fraction of what I was used to seeing them sold for back home in the UK.
At first, it was simply one of those moments you have while travelling: why does this cost so much less here?
But the thought stayed with me.
A simple question
I’ve always been fascinated by retail, particularly by what represents genuine value for customers.
Seeing such a significant difference between the US and UK prices made me curious. Was the Philips shaver foil an anomaly, or were there other everyday products where British consumers were paying considerably more simply because of where they happened to live?
I started looking.
And the more I looked, the more opportunities I found.
There were established American products available at significantly better value. There were different pack sizes and varieties that simply weren’t offered in Britain. And there were brands with incredibly loyal followings in the US which were either difficult to find in the UK or completely absent from the British high street.
What started as curiosity gradually became an idea.
What if we could bring some of that choice and value across the pond?
That simple question eventually became TradeFayre.
Starting small
There was no enormous launch.
TradeFayre grew in the way many small businesses do: one product, one order and one customer at a time.
Those replacement shaver parts provided the spark. We began sourcing products overseas and making them available to British consumers, initially with a very straightforward aim: if we could source a genuine product internationally and offer better value to a UK customer, why wouldn’t we?
But something interesting happened as we expanded.
We realised that price was only part of the opportunity.
Increasingly, customers weren’t necessarily buying from us because something was dramatically cheaper. They were buying because we had something they simply couldn’t easily find anywhere else.
That changed how we thought about TradeFayre.
From better value to better choice
The original idea had been about crossing the Atlantic with a better deal.
It gradually evolved into something broader: bringing choice across the Atlantic too.
Anyone who has spent time in an American supermarket, pharmacy or big-box retailer will recognise just how different the ranges can be. Familiar brands come in varieties and pack sizes that never make it onto British shelves. Other brands can be household names in North America yet almost completely unknown here.
The internet has made the world feel much smaller, but retail distribution hasn’t always followed at the same pace.
A British consumer can discover a product through social media, use something while travelling, or become attached to a particular American brand, only to return home and discover that buying it in the UK is surprisingly difficult.
We saw an opportunity to help bridge that gap.
Today, that’s a big part of what TradeFayre is about.
We search for established products and brands from overseas that we believe deserve to be more accessible to British consumers. Sometimes the attraction is exceptional value. Sometimes it’s a product format that isn’t commonly available here. And sometimes it’s simply a great product that hasn’t found its way onto the UK high street.
Why America?
The United States remains particularly interesting to us because of the extraordinary breadth of its consumer market.
Competition is intense, ranges are enormous and manufacturers frequently offer multiple versions, strengths, formats and pack sizes of products.
That creates some fascinating differences between the American and British markets.
Of course, importing products isn’t simply a matter of finding something interesting and putting it in a box. We take our responsibilities as a UK retailer seriously. The products we select need to be suitable for the market in which we’re selling them, sourced through channels we trust and presented clearly so customers understand exactly what they’re purchasing.
As TradeFayre has grown, so has the work behind the scenes.
But the principle that started it hasn’t really changed.
Find great products. Source them responsibly. Offer them fairly. Make them easier for British customers to buy.
Built around the customer
One thing we’re particularly proud of is that TradeFayre has grown from years of selling directly to customers online.
That matters.
Every order represents a real person who has trusted us with their money. Sometimes they’re trying an American product for the first time. Sometimes they’ve searched everywhere for something they used years ago. Sometimes they simply want a better-value alternative to what’s available elsewhere.
That direct relationship has shaped the business.
It has taught us that customers value straightforward descriptions, fair pricing and dependable service far more than marketing jargon.
It’s also why we don’t want TradeFayre to become an enormous catalogue containing everything imaginable.
We’d rather be selective.
We want to find products where there is a reason for us to sell them — whether that’s better value, better choice, a difficult-to-find brand or something genuinely different from the standard UK offering.
Still looking across the pond
It’s quite remarkable to think that the whole thing can be traced back to noticing the price of some shaver parts while visiting America.
There was no grand strategy behind that moment.
Just curiosity.
That curiosity became a search for other products. The search became a small business. And the original mission of finding better value gradually developed into something we’re even more excited about: discovering products and brands that British customers might otherwise struggle to access.
We’re still searching.
We’re still comparing.
We’re still finding those products that make us stop and think:
Why can’t I easily buy this in the UK?
And whenever we find a good answer to that question, there’s a good chance you’ll eventually find that product at TradeFayre too.
Because sometimes the best ideas don’t begin with trying to invent something new.
Sometimes they begin by spotting something great somewhere else and wondering why you can’t bring it home.
Today you can from Bath in Somerset to your door, at tradefayre.com.