QVC starts work on £20 million Knowsley expansion

22 March 2006: QVC broke ground today marking the start of construction work for a new high-bay warehouse and additional office and call centre space at its Customer Operations Centre in Knowsley - a £20 million investment.

This comes just ten years after QVC first chose Knowsley for its Operations Centre. Since 1996 QVC’s sales have quadrupled. In that year, QVC was available to just over 5 million homes, now more than 17 million households - seven out of ten of Britain’s households - can receive the channel. In 1996, 3.6 million parcels were shipped, by 2005 this had grown to 11.5 million parcels being sent to customers.

The new high-bay warehouse is the fifth phase of QVC’s expansion in Knowsley and will double the amount of storage space available. The new call centre and office space will allow QVC to maintain the highest level of service whilst meeting the growth in demand, as sales have increased by 33% in the last two years.

Mark Suckle, Chief Executive of QVC, said at the ground breaking ceremony: “We believe top quality customer service is the key to driving our business. And it’s well trained people with good facilities, technology and support who deliver outstanding service. That’s why we strive to make QVC a great place to work. And why we are investing in these new state of the art facilities which will allow us to excel at our processes and build the QVC of the future”.

“In quarter four 2005, our busiest time of year, 1,700 people worked at Knowsley. Once this construction work is completed in 2007, we will create 700 new jobs at all levels over the next seven years.”

Cllr Graham Morgan, Knowsley Council’s Deputy Leader, said: “QVC is one of the largest investors in the borough and has made a major contribution to the economy of Knowsley”.

“This expansion is great news for the borough’s growth and development, and helps secure many more local jobs.”