Kiddicare unveiled its plans to become a £200m business by 2016 today ahead of the launch of its first store in Nottingham next Wednesday. Chief executive Scott Weavers-Wright and chairman Richard Pennycook outline their vision for the future of the business to Alex Lawson

What was the thinking behind the acquisition of the former Best Buy stores?

RP: It was opportunistic. It is a great example of something could not happen with Morrisons and Kiddicare coming together. Kiddicare would not have had the resources to take on the Best Buy stores without the partnership. We had a multichannel ambition in the plan when we made the acquisition, it had always been Scott and Elaine [Weavers-Wright’s] ambition to have a number of stores, the good thing for us was that Best Buy clearly did their homework and the stores reach around a third of the UK population.

How are you leveraging the partnership between Morrisons and Kiddicare?

SWW: There are lots of opportunities to benefit. Morrisons is using our platform and facilities to launch its wine business and will be stocking our Buzzing Brains brand. We will definitely be looking to stock the Nutmeg [Morrisons kids clothing] brand.

Why did you decide to use Kiddicare to help you launch the wine business?

RP: Part of the reason for making the Kiddicare acquisition was that Scott had build such great technology. We have seen that we have been able to make that platform work for other categories and wine is a good proof of concept category to launch into.

Scott, why did you decide to opt for Morrisons in the acquisition process?

We had 17 bids for Kiddicare. The usual suspects – Amazon, Tesco, Shop Direct and Barclays were interested – and it was an exhaustive process. Morrisons really impressed me and they are also a family business which appealed.

How will the new stores add to your multichannel credentials?

SWW: We have move our kiosks over to IBM so they have the entire contents of the store from online synced in real time so not just hourly updates. Click and collect will also be available, initially from Peterborough and then locally. Initially we will be introducing a baby gift list where shopping can add products to an online list in store, ultimately we want to allow customers to scan and shop with their smartphones and just add products to their gift list as they go. We are also looking at 90 minute delivery options in the future.

What are you ultimate ambitions?

RP: We are very ambitious for the business. It’s already a significant player online for the categories it’s in. Opening the Best Buy stores will allow the business to open upa traditional shopping channel and push further into categories like toys and clothing. Toys and clothing are two thirds of Mothercare’s business and we see the opportunity to increase market share. We do have international ambitions in the EU but we will concentrate on opening the Best Buys first.

SWW: We want to hit a turnover of £200m by 2016, up from £50m annually now. We are on target and budget at the moment.