About Page New
Led by Udy Agarwal, USB have always strove to meet the varying needs of our diverse customer base and to provide quality, branded products which offer exceptional value. Starting from a humble retail shop in 1969 in Smethwick, West Midlands, USB has now become a truly international business. Udy's parents created a bustling retail business specialising in a wide variety of products to suit their customer base. Udy joined the family business in 1990, and after marrying his wife Mala, in 1995, helped expand the retail business further and went onto wholesaling and importing of textiles and travel goods; supplying differing sectors such as cruise liners, hotels, independent shops and multiple retailers. They finally began to focus on travel goods as the increase in budget airlines meant that the luggage market rapidly expanded, and with this, the industry became more about solving issues such as meeting weight limits and fitting within size restrictions. With the onset of the internet, we launched into the supply of industry-disrupting luggage brands online, and have continued our spectacular growth path by increasing our product base with a portfolio of wholly owned brands - Aerolite, 5 Cities, Frenzy, Hoppa, Marketeer, Cabin 1, Xtreme, Baby Joy, Olsen & Smith, Sport24 and Aqua Spirit.
USB own two large logistical warehouses in Essex with fully operational offices, allowing us to offer exceptional service to our EU customer base. We also have 3PL warehouses in the UK, EU and USA to cater for our increasingly global customer base.
Our international growth has been at such a rapid rate that USB International was awarded 54th place in the Sunday Times top 100 SME Export businesses for 2018. Unfortunately, we won't be able to improve upon this score next year, as we'll be too large a company to be able to be classed as an SME business! USB have a substantial growth agenda supported by employing truly talented and exceptional people, who are the best at what they do and aligned to fulfil on the growth vision. Services undertaken include Sourcing, QC and IT to ensure USB can focus on producing quality, high-value products that are on-trend, and on a growing demand curve. As a business, we are incredibly asset rich and cash flow positive, which drives us to focus on profitable, rapid growth – a real enviable position for a trading business such as ours. Since the beginning we have had a philosophy of protecting our base every year first, then reinvesting the fruits of our labour into the business to achieve further growth in year 2. Udy has been doing this for nearly 30 years since he joined the business, and we are now an 'overnight success'!