Five minutes. That's how long it took Laura Davies to agree a deal to buy Scandiborn, a competitor three times the size of her own business. Making it work took the next two years.

Richard Hill sits down with Laura, founder of The Kid Collective, whose story starts 18 years ago in a spare room selling reusable nappies, learning eCommerce from online forums with no maternity leave.

When her loyal community kept moving on after 18 months, she launched The Kid Collective to keep them longer, tested what stuck and landed on toys. After the eco market crashed post-Covid, Laura sold the nappy brand, went all in, and in May 2024 acquired Scandiborn. In July 2025, both businesses moved into one warehouse over a single weekend, with zero web downtime.

This isn't a polished success story. Their first joint peak "hit us like a ton of bricks." The backlog passed 8,000 orders, stock had nowhere to go and paid marketing had to be scaled back. Laura's line in the sand was every Christmas order out by 22 December without a single cancellation and they did it.

Richard and Laura also dig into choosing which brand partners to go all in on, why the Nuremberg Toy Fair matters every January, merging two teams onto Shopify without losing the culture, and how two brands in one market avoid cannibalising each other, from pricing to Meta strategy.

If you're weighing up an acquisition, running more than one brand or bracing for an untested peak, this one is packed with hard-won lessons.

Listen to the full episode now, and don't forget to hit subscribe.

Topics Covered

00:00 Introduction: Laura Davies, The Kid Collective and Scandiborn

01:10 Choosing which brand partners to go all in on, exclusives and the Nuremberg Toy Fair

07:00 From reusable nappies in the spare room to launching The Kid Collective

09:50 Buying Scandiborn, three times the size, in five minutes, and merging into one warehouse

14:30 The first joint peak: an 8,000+ order backlog and the 22 December deadline

18:50 Migrating to Shopify Plus and structuring teams without losing the culture

22:30 Fast-fire round and the Rainbows Hospice fundraising partnership

28:45 Running two brands: SEO, paid media, pricing and avoiding cannibalisation

36:20 What's next: range expansion and moving beyond a flat structure

38:20 Book recommendation and where to find Laura