The Very Group
![A former Littlewoods branch in [[Chesterfield, Derbyshire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Littlewoods%2C_Chesterfield.jpg)
A business group trading via several digital department stores, The Very Group traces its roots to a variety of mail order companies in northern England, the football pools and mail order business founded by John Moores, as well as the Manchester-based home shopping business of Great Universal Stores. These companies were purchased by Sir David and Frederick Barclay in 2003, and a major business restructuring took place leading to a merger of two companies that had "been arch rivals for the best part of 100 years".
Since the merger of what had been struggling businesses in 2005, ongoing restructuring and modernisation of the company has resulted in Shop Direct emerging as one of the largest online retailers in the UK. Its traditional paper-based and phone-in orders system has been superseded by electronic commerce technology.
The group is now amongst the largest online retailers in the UK, with annual sales of £1.86bn as of 2016 and 62% of online sales coming from mobile devices.
The group's brands are Very.co.uk, Littlewoods.com, Very Exclusive and Very Ireland (rebranded from 'Littlewoods Ireland' in July 2022). The former Shop Direct brands are Additions Direct, Abound, Choice, Great Universal, Isme, K&Co, Kays, Marshall Ward and Woolworths. In 2009, The Very Group acquired the brand name of the failed Woolworths Group and re-established it as an online-only operation; this closed in 2015 and the Woolworths UK brand was sold in July 2021 to Woolworth Deutschland. Provided by Wikipedia
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