With $138 million in revenue last year and a new brand identity, Lincoln-based Spreetail is on a hiring spree.
Established in 2006 as VM Innovations and officially announcing their name change in late 2015, the hugely successful online retailer Spreetail says the rebranding was about recruitment and awareness.
“Archrival did all of our branding and naming, which we are very excited about. They did a fabulous job. They came up with Spreetail. We just felt like that really fit and really spoke to customers about what we do as an online retailer,” said Kelsey Hearnen, head of Marketplace Development at Spreetail.
Although they identify as an e-commerce company, they also make it very clear that e-commerce was not their biggest purpose.
“Our bigger purpose as a company is to make a dent in the universe by delighting millions of customers, creating opportunity and wealth for our team and revolutionizing the communities we touch,” said Hearnen.
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Along with their primary location in Lincoln, Spreetail also has locations in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“We’re in this for the long haul. We’re not in this just to benefit ourselves or benefit the company either. We really realize that we do have a responsibility for the communities that we operate in,” said Hearnen.
Moving to Innovation Campus
2016 will bring about more changes for the recently rebranded company. Spreetail will be growing, with new hires and new space at the Nebraska Innovation Campus.
“We’re really excited to get in an environment where our team is closer to downtown, to the action on campus close to the students,” said Spreetail founder Brett Thome. “We have fun, but our fun is through accomplishment. Our fun is through growing success and hard work. That’s what we want to make sure our new office shows is that we can do a lot of fun things because we are successful, we work hard and we accomplish things.”
Spreetail estimates that they could provide upwards of 800 jobs in their communities in the next 5 years.
“You need to come out of the gate basically offering free two-day shipping”
In an industry where it’s harder and harder to get started, Thome thinks that Spreetail will remain competitive.
“There won’t be really new startup ecommerce companies. It’s too hard to enter right now,” said Thome. “The barrier to entry is too high. You need to come out of the gate basically offering free two-day shipping. You can’t just start that in your apartment anymore.”
In a future with fewer and fewer ecommerce companies, Thome sees Spreetail as one of them.
“I think the future of ecommerce is a space with a lot fewer players than maybe existed ten years ago because those players have gone away now,” said Thome. “There is just going to be five to twenty [big] companies left. We think we’re going to be part of that.”
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Jake Hull is the Lincoln Editor for Silicon Prairie News and a Community Builder for AIM in Lincoln, Nebraska.
