Electricals giant Comet – which had more than 200 stores before its collapse in 2012 – is the latest retailer to be relaunched online
Electricals chain Comet is set to be reborn – 13 years after its collapse.
Online marketplace OnBuy.com has brought the Comet brand and is poised to relaunch the business as an internet-only store. Cas Paton, founder of OnBuy, said it planned to pump more than £10million into bringing back Comet – complete with its original branding.
Comet was founded in Hull in 1933 and started out selling batteries and radios, and grew to become a high street giant. But in what was one of the biggest high street casualties of recent years, the 236-store chain went to the wall in 2012, with 7,000 job losses, after racking up heavy losses.
OnBuy plans to relaunch the Comet website in time for Christmas, although there are no plans to return to having physical stores.
“I am so excited, so thrilled,” said Greater Manchester-born Mr Paton. “Growing-up, I went to Comet to get what I needed. It was a brand that was close to me personally. We want to bring Comet back to the UK consumer. It’s a household name that we estimate is recognised by 70% of UK adults.”
The relaunched Comet will operate as an online shop window where big name electricals goods makers can advertise and sell their products.
However, it is re-entering a cut-throat market, from online giants such as Amazon through to chains such as Currys. Mr Paton, who started his first business aged 21 with £80 after leaving the Royal Navy, insists the strength of the Comet brand can prove a winner.
And despite the size of its competitors, the married father-of-four claimed he can even beat its rivals on price. “Consumers will have more choice and more competitive prices,” he vowed. “We will be ultra competitive and undercut Currys and Amazon.”
Most of the £10million will be into Comet’s technology, although the relaunch is expected to create around 50 jobs. Online marketplace OnBuy, based in London, was launched in November 2016 and is now valued at around £200million.
News of Comet’s revival comes a week after it was announce famous furniture firm MFI was being reinvented as an online store, 18 years after the original shop’s collapse.
Victorian Plumbing, which bought the MFI brand name in 2024, said it will be launched next year. Mullard Furniture Industries started in 1964 as a mail order business and became Britain’s biggest furniture retailer, but it collapsed in 2008.
Topshop is set for a high street return after demand from shoppers, the firm behind it said recently. Online giant Asos gave its clearest sign yet that the once-beloved brand is making a bricks-and-mortar comeback.
Asos, which bought the business after the collapse of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia empire, said a standalone Topshop website is set to be launched in summer.