From 1795 to Shopify: Building a £12M eCommerce Toy Brand, with Joe Jaques

Joe Jaques, eighth-generation CEO of Jaques of London, details the strategic pivot of his 200-year-old family business into a modern, data-driven toy company. By leveraging granular data analysis and AI-assisted insights, the company successfully scaled to £12 million in annual revenue while maintaining a vertically integrated operation that spans from design and manufacturing in China to UK-based fulfillment. A critical component of this growth involves a rigorous focus on customer retention and high-conversion email capture, alongside a robust influencer seeding strategy that correlates product distribution with branded search volume on Amazon. Despite navigating a challenging Company Voluntary Administration (CVA) post-COVID, the business maintains its commitment to educational play for children under five, prioritizing long-term brand success and product quality over short-term financial gains.