Member Article

Gem of a business sees first year success

A North East entrepreneur’s business idea sparked by a holiday has turned over £1m in just one year. Darren McCormick and his partner from Tyneside were in America when they discovered the Pandora jewellery range, a product that allows customers to create their own individual piece.

Pandora Jewellery is popular in America, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Australia but no one had explored the idea of introducing the range to the UK. Now 120 top jewellery shops nationwide are selling the product thanks to entrepreneur Darren, a number which is growing every month. Within days of the American holiday, Darren was in Denmark to talk to Pandora’s parent company about securing UK distribution rights for the next decade. Demand in the UK is now so high that Darren has moved to a 6,000 sq feet unit on a Newton Aycliffe industrial estate and employs eight staff, with the prospect of more jobs to follow.

Darren said: “It was a huge gap in the market just waiting to be filled. “We knew we were on to a winner – and we had absolute faith in the product we wanted to sell. But even we couldn’t predict the runaway success of Pandora UK. It has exceeded all our wildest expectations. The product is so versatile and so personal. “There is nothing else quite like it.”

More details on the Pandora UK range can be found at www.pandorauk.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .