History

Viverdi Ltd. was formed on the 10th of October 2003.

Back in July 2000 Mark Berriman a 21 year old entrepreneur from South Shields cracked open the bubbly in celebration after Gifts2Drink was granted a drinks license by South Tyneside Magistrates - the first North East based company to be granted a license to sell alcohol over the Internet.

Mark was co-owner of Gifts to Drink a web based supplier of luxury gifts based at TEDCO's South Shields business centre. Keeping it in the family, Mark and his father Tony came up with the idea of setting up a website to sell alcoholic gifts after Mark's mother, then an off-license proprietor, had a huge success selling gifts over the counter, direct to the public. The idea was born and the rest is, as they say, history! Mark and his mother were full-time partners in the successful business.

During a rapid two years of growth Gifts2Drink were finalists for the UK's regional ecommerce awards and Mark himself was short listed for the Express national newspaper entrepreneur of the year award and he narrowly missed out on this prestigious award. Gifts2Drink have led the internet gift industry with it's innovative forward thinking approach.

Mark Berriman left Gifts2Drink in October 2003 and became the major shareholder and managing director of newly founded Viverdi Ltd.

Viverdi's prime objective is to be the complete solution to Internet sales & marketing bringing together the best minds and the best technologies. It was not long before Viverdi won large contracts working for TEDCO a local development company which assists small businesses and Business Link Tyne and Wear as internet marketing consultants, Mark Berriman used his knowledge of the internet to assist others.

However in November 2003 Mark was brought together with Charlie, his chocolate Labrador dog. After months of traveling on a 30 mile round trip to buy his specialist Hill's Science Plan dog food from his nearest stockist he suddenly realised, "The obvious answer was for me to buy this product online and I quickly spotted an opportunity in the pet market for a leader in e-commerce pet supplies as the market was undeveloped."

"I approached local pet stores and asked if they would like to have a partnership with Viverdi and we would design and promote a website selling the goods on their shelves and amazingly they declined my offer, I bet they are kicking themselves now. I could not ignore this huge opportunity so with the support of my bank we created www.Pet-Supermarket.co.uk."

Pet-Supermarket became Viverdi's first wholly owned internet brand in August 2004 and has quickly grown to become the market leader in the online pet supplies marketplace by working closely with the leading manufacturers in promoting their products at the lowest prices.

Viverdi Ltd moved in August 2005 to its new 5,000 sq. ft warehouse in Jarrow, Tyne and Wear and with a choice of over 12,000 products by far the biggest independent store in Tyne and Wear with the largest online range in the UK.

In September 2005 Mark Berriman pushed through the purchase of Gifts2Drink.co.uk to create a company now turning over in excess of ?2m and employing 18 members of staff. Speaking of the acquisition mark stated that "Buying Gifts2Drink was an opportunity to strengthen our vision of becoming a market leader of retail sales online and the two separate brands allow for the company to develop our software and customer base"

Viverdi has also recently signed a 6 year contract with K3 Technology worth ?250,000 to develop a new website and enterprise resource management database to establish the company as the market leader in it's field. Speaking of the major deal Mark says "Both Viverdi and Elucid share the desire of individually becoming the market leaders of our fields in the UK. Investing in our technology, staff and products we believe is the way to ensure that our company continues to grow at such an outstanding rate, and we have also received support of a ?12,000 Business Link grant towards the cost of the development. This investment will allow our customers to have a similar online shopping experience of the largest stores such as Amazon and Tesco's."

The new system is due to be rolled out in July of 2006 and will ensure that we continue to provide an exceptional service whilst we continue to develop our products and services to remain the market leaders. Other current expansion plans include moving in to the our new offices in the center of South Shields which will allow us to continue to expand our call center and customer service team.

Speaking of the future the managing director of the group Mark Berriman added "We have many plans afoot to expand the brand name viverdi further and also into other industry's altogether"

It is clear that Viverdi will one day be a name recognised by many for the services it provides to a wide range of people.

For more information on our company please email us at the following address; Email: bizdev@Gifts2Drink.co.uk