How ILG has become a leading international fulfillment and delivery specialist
ILG (International Logistics Group) is a market-leading third-party logistics company specializing in high-quality order fulfillment and delivery services. Setting itself apart with its high level of customer service, the business promises to ‘make [its] customers more successful.’ Tom Ashley, CEO, shares some more detailed insights: “We’ve been in business for 35 years now. In the beginning, it was a man and a van operation in and around the Sussex area of the UK. Over the ensuing years, we have grown into a significant player in the fulfillment and delivery space with 12 facilities across the UK and Europe. We largely specialize in beauty, wellbeing, and fashion. We provide companies, who are often experiencing fast-paced growth, with high-quality value-added services in the form of fulfillment and delivery services.”
Tom then explains the operational differences between the company’s services: “The business provides two core products. The first is what we call fulfillment,
which means distributing products from our warehouse facilities to homes and retailers on behalf of around 120 different ecommerce brands across various sectors. We are responsible for storing and managing our customers’ stock in our warehouses, and then responding to orders by picking, personalizing and packing the relevant products and delivering to the right destinations, either in the UK or across the globe. We fulfill orders that come in through various channels. It could be you buying products online as a consumer at home, or it could be bulk orders that are going to retailers such as Boots, Sephora, Harrods, or Selfridges. We act as the stock-holding repository for all our brands and hold the responsibility for facilitating that omnichannel distribution.
“Our other main product is the delivery service. We work on behalf of our brands to ensure that the final mile and transport services are managed for them. We have contracts with all the large carriers, including UPS, FedEx, and DHL. The uniqueness of our service is providing a one-stop shop where customers are provided with one system that gives them access to all those different carriers. This enables us to provide shipping that meets our clients’ specific requirements. This, in turn, allows our customers to really focus on costs and service. Our job is to provide a kind of carrier-agnostic solution that ultimately gives our customers whatever they need, irrespective of other factors.”
With the company expanding its European operations, Tom outlines the strategy and its benefits: “A few of our brands needed a solution to be able to distribute their products in Europe and we initially opened a facility in Poland following Brexit. As we are part of a global logistics company called Yusen Logistics, we conducted an analysis of all their operating companies within Europe to establish the best place for ILG to open new facilities.
“We looked at all the common places, including The Netherlands, Germany, and France, but we also included several central Eastern Europe destinations like the Czech Republic and Poland. Poland came out on top for a variety of reasons. Firstly, because of its proximity to Germany, which is such a key e-commerce and B2B market, but also because of its cost and availability of labor, and cost of facilities. These were all really important factors for our customers. We began operations there in 2020 and just recently moved into a much larger purpose-built facility in 2024. This gives us significant expansion capability in the European region.”
There are also plans for further expansions beyond European operations, which Tom goes on to detail: “While we already have substantial business in the US that we are satisfying from our UK and European hubs, as part of our strategic roadmap we want to be able to have our own facilities in the States. We are actively exploring expansion opportunities there, either through partnership or acquisition. Given that the situation in the US is fairly dynamic at the moment the need for us to be able to provide a solution that gives our brands a local capability is really important.”
Acquisitions represent a significant element of this strategy. In February last year, for example, the company acquired GFS Logistics to further enhance its capabilities. Tom highlights some of the key advantages: “GFS can be described as technology-enabled logistics. We bought the business to significantly increase our footprint and purchasing power in the carrier space. They also, though, have fantastic in-house technology capabilities which we want to continue to invest in, to not only enhance our delivery proposition but also to bring some of those capabilities into our fulfillment offering as well. We are investing heavily into that team to expand it in 2025. This will enable us to bring a number of new products to market, which we believe will really change the face of the industry.”
Before looking to the future, Tom takes a moment to reflect on the successes of the last few years and how they have positioned the company to capitalize on emergent opportunities, enabling the continuation and consolidation of a truly global expansion: “Alongside opening our facility in Poland, our largest ever in Europe, we have also recently opened a new facility in the UK, which is the largest we have ever operated in the UK. We’ve achieved all of that in the last year alone.
“Our global growth strategy really involves supporting the sectors that we’re involved with to make logistics easier as brands expand their geographical footprint. Our ethos as a business is about making our customers more successful. We want to be able to be that trusted partner as they expand globally, to be there for them, because growing your business is challenging enough. Growing it with a trusted partner, particularly a logistics partner because it’s such a critical component for so many of our brands, is where we want to be. That’s what we’re working hard to deliver for our customers as we go forward.”
Tom concludes with a vision of the future: “Looking ahead, our ten-year strategy includes becoming a billion-dollar company. It’s a big number to accomplish, but through carefully orchestrated acquisitions and expansion, we firmly believe this is achievable. Ultimately, we want to be considered the largest boutique provider of fulfillment and delivery services to the beauty, wellbeing and fashion industries.”