Case study

How Tiny Box grew to an eco-powerhouse

Dragons' Den entrepreneur achieves eCommerce growth and international expansion with DIT support.

Tiny Box Company is the UK’s largest online gift packaging eCommerce company. It has over 700 products and over 120,000 customers, ranging from one-person start-ups to international corporations.

Rachel Watkyn founded Tiny Box Company in 2007, after she was unable to find any suitable recyclable packaging for her fair-trade jewellery and accessories line.

A year later, she appeared on popular BBC show Dragons’ Den, walking away with backing from 2 investors and a massive vote of confidence in her business idea.

“Our exporting was driven by customers placing orders online. The first international order was from America and since then we’ve just had more and more customers coming to us and saying, can you export to me? And by 2016, we were shipping to about 30 countries.”

Rachel Watkyn Founder and Managing Director Tiny Box Company

DIT helped Tiny Box with advice on:

  • EU VAT changes and moving goods into the EU
  • exporting to ASEAN countries
  • eCommerce marketplace onboarding

Since then, Tiny Box has grown to become one of the UK’s largest online gift packaging eCommerce companies. It provides over 700+ products to more than 100,000 customers, with a mix of clients on its books, from one-person startups to multinational organisations.

With ongoing help from DIT International Trade Adviser Estelle Dingley, the business has continued its international expansion.

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