Our History
Carpetright was founded by Lord Harris in November 1988 with the first store in Canning Town, London operating from a central warehouse in Barking, Essex.
During 1990 the Company moved its head office and warehouse to Rainham, Essex and set up two small semi-automatic cutting tables, which were able to provide 1,000 cuts a week. By the end of that year Carpetright had 71 stores trading from 690,000 square feet, giving a turnover of £37 million and a profit of £400,000.
In 1993 Carpetright floated on the London Stock Exchange and by the end of April 1996 had expanded rapidly with 246 stores, over two million square feet of trading space, a turnover of £185 million and a profit of £25 million.
In November 1998, Carpetright celebrated its 10th birthday with a very successful birthday trading celebration. This milestone highlighted the huge change in size which had been achieved in Carpetright’s first 10 years. It now had 308 stores, over three million square feet of trading space, a turnover of £277 million and a profit of £23.5 million.
In January 1999 selected Carpetland and Allied Carpets stores were purchased and rebranded as Carpetright and 30 new Harris Carpets stores were opened.
In June 2002 Carpetright opened a 63,000 sq foot (5,853 sq metre) warehouse in Thurrock, which provided a new five metre cutting facility, increasing cutting capacity by a third.
In October 2002 Carpetright purchased “Interiors for Europe” providing a solid base for developing business in the Benelux regions. Holland and Belgium were chosen as the key markets to expand as they are culturally similar and geographically close to the UK.
In October 2002 Carpetright purchased “Interiors for Europe” providing a solid base for developing business in the Benelux regions. Holland and Belgium were chosen as the key markets to expand as they are culturally similar and geographically close to the UK.
In 2003 the Company launched its Fitters’ Academy programme, in association with the Flooring Industry Training Association, to assess and train third party fitters used to provide a fitting service to our customers. To date Carpetright has assessed over 1,700 fitters ensuring it continues to lead the industry in customer service.
In December 2007, after 6 months of comprehensive planning, Carpetright relocated its Central Support Office & Warehousing into brand new premises in Purfleet, Essex. With an area of over 500,000 sq feet it enabled the complete consolidation of all the cutting and distribution facilities into one location, extending the output capacity for future growth in the business and providing staff with state of the art facilities.