FIRED up in anticipation of massive expansion, international retailer Expat shopping today settled into a brand new headquarters in York Business Park, Upper Poppleton.

The move from 800 sq ft offices at Regent House in Lysander Close, Clifton Moor, into the 2,000 sq ft Marlborough House, Westminster Place at York Business Park comes as the organisation announces it is offering franchises in its £3 million European retail operation.

Ten employees have moved the two miles into the new headquarters and another four are expected to be taken on over the next three months.

A further seven employees will continue to staff the organisation's warehousing operation in Osbaldwick.

The franchising marks the next stage of expansion from dotcom e-tailing - as expatshopping.com - to retailing.

The venture already turns over more than £800,000 delivering British and American food to expatriates in more than 100 countries yearning for the taste of home in the form of Marmite, Walkers Crisps, Colman's mustard, Hershey Bars and the like.

Now it is expected to sell more than £3 million worth of goods this year through its development of five European retail outlets over the past nine months in the Netherlands and Germany, ventures which between them now employ more than 60 people.

The plan is to double that to ten by next Christmas, offering an extensive network of franchise supermarkets across mainland Europe.

Turnover is expected to rise quickly to about £4 million by the end of the financial year.

Expat.com has come a long way since its existence was announced in the Evening Press with the headline It Ain't Half Dot Com in April 2000. In that same year it scooped both the New Business of the Year and Innovative Use of New Technology titles in the Evening Press Business of the Year awards.

It was started by ex-army pals Richard Finch and Simon Aldrich who recalled their yearning for food from home and turned it into a multi-million pound enterprise.

Mr Finch said today: "Already we are in negotiations for six franchises - all generated prior to our announcement and unsolicited - so we are hoping for great things."

Given the huge success of the original operation, there was no question of phasing out the dotcom offerings.

"If anything, we will be creating specific websites in each new area of Europe that we open," he said.

Updated: 11:15 Tuesday, July 15, 2003