About Us

ESE Direct Ltd was established by Brian Francis in 1975 as Eastern Storage Equipment Ltd selling shelving, racking and associated storage equipment. In the early 1980’s we underwent a step change and have been trading very successfully since. We now have almost 30 dedicated and experienced staff working within our three divisions:

• Since 1984 ESE Direct has been supplying over 20,000 industrial and commercial products from cable protectors, speed ramps and safety barriers through first aid kits and signs to workbenches, cupboards / lockers (and including shelving and racking obviously). We supply to over 12,500 clients spread across the public sector, emergency services, all sizes of businesses, organisations and charities via our own comprehensive free mail order catalogue, and since 2000 via our unique secure online shop. Even in the current economic climate ESE continues to grow year-on-year and online sales now account for more than 80% of turnover even though we are still primarily a UK only supplier. You can order online, by email, live chat, phone, fax or even still by 'snail mail' if you prefer.


• Since 1983 ESE Projects has been designing, supplying and undertaking refurbishment contracts in offices, warehouses, factories, leisure facilities, retail premises, trade counters and stores / stock rooms. Using the latest software and our extensive industry experience to ensure the most cost-effective, ergonomic and practical solutions to suit your requirements and budget. Whether your project is small or worth hundreds of thousands of pounds we will always strive to offer the highest quality finish and customer service possible. We have extremely experienced specialists in office partitions, industrial steel partitioning systems, mobile shelving, racking and mezzanine floors. We have access to many reliable related trades and can compile a full package as principal contractors or work closely with other contractors on your site as part of a larger team. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss your requirements in detail.


• ESE Cloakrooms - designers and manufacturers of cloakroom seating since 1990. Changing room benches, peg rails, wall fixed shelving and clothing racks to suit mainly the leisure, education, emergency services, sports and health sectors plus commercial changing facilities in larger businesses. We manufacture four unique ranges of cloakroom benches (including the Aqua stainless steel range launched in 2011) and changing room accessories, all available in five standard sizes from 1m to 3m wide and six colour choice (all with Biocote anti-bacterial finish).
  
  Rebranded as Benchura in 2014, our changing room equipment is regularly specified by architects and designers and sold to main contractors, business mail order catalogues, via ‘approved distributors’ and direct to end users. We are confident we can provide strong and competitive solutions to meet your needs from our standard ranges. If not we will design and manufacture a cost effective bespoke system to suit your exact requirements.

As a long established, customer-centric business, history and a sense of belonging is very important to us. This is a brief synopsis of the key milestones that have led to ESE becoming one of the leading suppliers of industrial and commercial products to thousands of businesses and organisations across the UK.

2016 – Jackie Wells joins us as Managing Director and will be overseeing the replacement of much of our business software with a new system built specifically to make our customer service as efficient as possible at the same time as integrating websites, catalogues and direct sales into one system.

2015 – We took on more office space and in February were purchased by HC Slingsby PLC. The acquisition of the company by a larger PLC has enabled us to harness the greater buying power that comes with being part of a group and pass these savings on to our customers.

2014 – Fifth consecutive record year we recruited another 7 people (12 to 30+ team members in 5 years) and took on more office and warehouse space for our continuous expansion plans. We added extra phone lines and upgraded our phone call management systems to ensure we can answer your calls as efficiently as possible. We also launched two new websites and made dozens of other improvements to ensure we can look after you, our valued customers, to the best of our ability.

2013 – Fourth consecutive record year, thanks to your continued faith in us our customer base has also grown six-fold, we:
Added 1,600 new products and worked closely with suppliers to reduce or hold over 4,200 prices.
Changed to ESE Direct (previously Eastern Storage Equipment) because over 80% of our business is transacted through this trading style.
Now have an experienced senior management team in place.
Refurbished and extended our offices to facilitate further growth.
Took on extra warehousing to increase stock, reduce lead times and prices as well.
We also doubled our storage and mezzanine floor project handling capacity, and launched Biocote anti-bacterial paint finish as standard on our changing room benches.

2012 – Another record year, we made significant advances in customer services and order processing procedures to ensure we can look after you whilst we continue to grow. We recruited a Financial Director to help plan for the future, won one local and two national awards and were finalists in the Orange National Business Awards; probably the biggest business award in the UK. Another 2,000 new products were added online, some of which started selling within 24 hours of going live.

2011 – Another record year, we analysed and improved our business processes, employed five extra sales and customer service staff to ensure you, our customers, remain our top priority. Our IT systems were upgraded to automate as much as possible and enable ESE to handle the much larger volumes of orders and enquiries. 1,100 new online, mail order products were launched, along with a new range of Stainless Steel Cloakroom Seating with compact laminate or all stainless seats for the swimming pool and food processing and cleanroom markets.

2010 – A record year, we launched our first 352 page mail order catalogue along with brand new in-house designed and created E-commerce website and E-catalogue. We recruited four new team members to improve administration and maintain customer service and totally refurbished our facilities to accommodate them and the new team members planned for 2011.

2009 – Launched two new cloakroom ranges - Budget range an ex stock changing room bench seating for the construction industry and – Club range aesthetically pleasing designer cloakroom benches with round frame legs at extremely competitive prices. We decided to create our first in-house B2B mail order catalogue instead of relying on ‘external providers’ who determined the content and pricing for us. The last four months of the year were spent almost entirely analysing all product ranges, suppliers performance, prices, lead times etc to ensure our new catalogue and website would offer the best products at the best prices in a more customer friendly way, as well as ensuring we provided quantity discounts and enough information to enable an informed purchasing decision.

2008 – Was the best year in our 33 year history with increased sales, significantly increased customer numbers who were spread across the entire UK (only 4 postal districts not supplied) and we supplied products to more than 190 different industries. Two new cloakroom bench ranges were designed and the existing 18 year old range was given a makeover to bring it upto date and to reflect the latest requirements from Sport England and the Football Foundation.

2007 – In 2007, 2008 and 2009 ESE entered a number of National and Regional Awards for customer service, use of technology and business growth and were lucky enough to have won or been finalists in 80% of all entered.

2004 – Online sales became an increasingly important part of our business model so independent websites were created for each division to enable more detailed and specific product information to be displayed to our 'core products' www.esedirect.co.uk - www.eseprojects.co.uk - www.benchura.co.uk As a result online business more than doubled in that year.

2000 – First full Online Ordering Website was launched containing all 7,500 products from our 300 page business mail order catalogue.

2003 – Changing room bench ranges we manufacture were fully redesigned and cost engineered in conjunction with some of our Architect / Main Contractor clients, to ensure we continue to provide benches with industry leading seat strength, easy on-site assembly, the best range of 'standard sizes' and common 'core components' to aid product versatility and reduce stocked variations.

1999 – Brian's eldest son, Simon took over as Managing Director (having started in 1984 in the warehouse and gained experience across the business first, like many of our team). The business started to grow beyond expectations with the customer base more than trebling and turnover increasing and plans were put in place for year on year growth.

1997 – First fairly basic Brochure Website was launched (when most competitors did not even have a website).

1990 – Cloakroom seating manufacturing division was established and the first Versa range of cloakroom benches were designed in-house and sold primarily through other B2B mail order catalogues.

1989 – Development of Northumberland Street commenced, seeing ESE purchase the land in front of their offices and build an additional 6,000sq ft of ground floor storage space, as well as adding mezzanine floors and racking floors to the existing 6,600sq ft to improve facilities.

1984 – First 128 page mail order catalogue was despatched and the product range was expanded by approximately 4,000 items to include handling equipment, trucks and trolleys, signs, noticeboards, first aid kits, litter and wheelie bins, ladders, lockers and workbenches.

1983 – Supply and Installation of Mezzanine Floors, Office Partitioning and Industrial Steel Partitions were added to the portfolio and the offices were first refurbished to provide a working showroom of the types of products and services we could provide our clients (since refurbished and extended numerous times).

1980 – Rapid expansion led to a number of moves, culminating in a final relocation to our current headquarters in Northumberland Street, Norwich. It is from this location we continue to serve our loyal and extremely varied customer base throughout the UK.

January 1975 – Established by Brian Francis, ESE originally operated from a small summerhouse in his back garden. Primarily selling Shelving and Racking as he had been working for many years in this industry as the top sales person for Link51 one of the leading manufacturers.