Comet gears up for online return

Electrical retailer Comet will return to action as a pureplay next week, eight years after it folded.

“Thank you all for your good luck messages and memories of your time with the Comet brand. We’re certainly excited to get this iconic brand back out to the British public,” a LinkedIn post said.

Before its collapse, Comet was the UK's second biggest electrical retailer, with 236 stores. In 2003, it was spun out of Kingfisher Group to become part of Kesa. In 2011, following sustained losses, Kesa sold the company to private equity firm OpCapita for a token £2.

It entered administration in November 2012, and all stores and their stock were liquidated and closed by the end of that year. In 2019, UK Computer Group announced the acquisition of the Comet brand.

“This represents another huge step within the group having acquired Misco earlier this year, which is a leading provider of IT products, solutions and services to business and public sector organisations for 30 years before its demise in 2017,” UK Computer Group said in an online statement last year.

“Watch this space, a holding page will be live in the next 24 hours so you can register for updates and and we look forward to launching the site early next year!”

That didn’t happen, obviously, but better late than never, we guess. Not a huge amount has been revealed about the tech underpinning the pureplay, although we do know that Comet has partnered with Klarna to offer its buy now, pay later service.