Back in 2010, LEDs weren’t mainstream yet. If you wanted lighting, you were limited to halogens that broke after a few months, or the ugly and dull “energy-saver” CFLs.
Brothers Amit and Prashant Soni weren’t interested in either option though, and wanted something more for Prashant’s beloved fish tanks.
More specifically, he wanted something that wouldn’t drain his bank account when the energy bill came at the end of the month.
After much research, LED lights looked like they were the answer.
They were bright, crisp, and sipped energy rather than gulping it down. And they worked a treat for the fish tanks.
The “Light Bulb” Moment
Then came the “aha!” - why couldn’t LED lights be used for general lighting too? Remember, this was in 2010, way before LEDs were as popular as they are now.
So, pooling together just £2,000, and using just a laptop and a vision, they invested in an initial batch of stock consisting of light bulbs and spotlights, and launched Wholesale LED Lights.
Humble Beginnings
In the early days of the company, orders weren’t processed by complex stock management systems like we have now - they were written down by hand on paper in notebooks, crossing them off once orders had been shipped.
The range of products - basic light bulbs and spotlights - meant this was relatively easy to manage. However, as orders snowballed, so did the demands on the business.
Websites were rebuilt, new order management systems were put into place, and the first employees were in place. All this needed somewhere we could call home.
And that place was Vaughn Way in Leicester City centre - the site of WLEDs first office.
Growth & Evolution
Within just a few short years, the ever-expanding team quickly outgrew Vaughn Way, and the business relocated down the road to Devonshire Road.
A bigger office and a larger warehouse awaited, where the team could handle the newest trend in home lighting - LED strip lights.
Never wanting to sit still, Amit and Prashant spotted another gap in the market. Whilst other retailers sold you a reel of tape and left you to it, WLED would go on step further, and offer bespoke lengths, already cut & soldered in house, ready for installation the moment it arrives on your doorstep.
It didn’t take long for WLED to become one of the most popular destinations for project based lighting, thanks to the bespoke service that not many, if any, retailers were offering.
Such is the strength of the company, that even a global pandemic wasn’t enough to slow WLED down, instead, providing an ideal time to relocate once again, this time to a 16,000 square foot warehouse on Scudamore Road on the outskirts of Leicester.
The Core Of The Business
At WLED, and all its other sister companies under the Mirrorstone umbrella, the core of the business is that it is, and always has been, a family run business, with the people who started it still running the company.
Our humble beginnings means we learnt early on to obsess over the details, which is why a £2,000 investment blossomed into one of the UKs largest independent retailers of LED lighting, and the go-to authority on custom cut LED strip lights.
In a nutshell, we treat your lighting projects with the same level of care and attention that Prashant gave his fish tanks all those years ago.