Portfolio Business High street
Cotton on
A high-street opening offers some pointers to what makes a successful business Nick Wheeler recalls, aged five, going into
work with his father at Wolseley-Hughes, the engineering company. With roots in the makers of the iconic Wolseley car, the company had diversified and was also making heating products. Te young Wheeler saw raw materials going in one end and finished products coming out the other. “I would help open the post in the morning and I always remember when there was a cheque, we all felt terribly excited,” he said. His father probably would have liked to run
his own business, he thinks, but post-war Britain was not the ideal environment for start-ups. Wheeler senior did lead a management buy- out at Wolseley, though, and it was probably these formative experiences that engendered an entrepreneurial spirit in his son. “I’ve always wanted to have my own business,” said Wheeler, founder of the shirt-maker Charles Tyrwhitt (pronounced ‘Tirrit’). “I’ve just never liked the idea of being bossed around by anyone else; I
himself with a consignment of shoes, none of which fitted. Undeterred, Wheeler wondered: “What else can I do? And I just literally thought ‘shirts’.” A friend told him about a cotton supplier in Lancashire and Wheeler asked him who the best shirt maker in England was (it happened to be in Clacton-on-Sea, in Essex). Beginning with a mail-order business in 1986, Wheeler now has seven stores in London, seven around the UK (including one which opened in George Street, Edinburgh, last week), one in Paris and two in New York, as well as a thriving online outlet; in all turning over around £85m this year, up 35 per cent on 2010. It is bucking the trend; retail sales dropped in
August as consumers remained concerned about their jobs and incomes, according to the British Retail Consortium. Sales at stores open for at least 12 months, measured by value, fell 0.6 per cent from a year earlier. Consumer confidence fell for a third month in August as turmoil on the stock markets and signs of a faltering economic recovery shook sentiment. “Poor consumer confidence, high inflation and the on-going squeeze on personal finances remain the biggest threats to the retail sector,” BRC Director General Stephen Robertson said in the report. “Sales of big-ticket items are very dependent on discounting and many retailers’ margins are being cut to the bone.”
“The more we have focused on doing the basic things right, the better we do as a business”
like to be in control of my own destiny.” As a youngster, Wheeler would stand on a bridge over the Tames and photograph boats passing during the Head of the River Race and various regattas – then go around schools selling the pictures. He delivered Christmas trees in London and – as an added feature – offered to collect them. During his gap year, he went to India and had a pair of shoes made that he was so taken by he decided while at university to start a tailor- made shoe business. It wasn’t a success. He took orders, tracing around customers’ feet and then faxing the outlines to the makers in Sindra, in northern India. But the faxes often shortened or lengthened the outline, depending on the quality of the telephone line and Wheeler found
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www.holyrood.com 19 September 2011
Wheeler is defying the miserably downward trend of high-street retailers, but he is refreshingly frank about why he thinks the business is thriving: “I’m a great believer in keeping things simple.
Provide the customer with what they want; a great product at a good price. Make sure you have in stock what they are looking for and make it easy for them to speak to someone if they need to. I’ve found that the more we have focused on doing the basic things right, the better we do as a business.” While the company’s main product sits above those of the larger retailers, such as Marks and Spencer and Next, it still places store on offering value with its ‘buy four shirts for £100’ offer. It also occupies a fortuitous position; in the good times, M&S shoppers tend to treat themselves to Charles Tyrwhitt and when times are tough, the brand is a comfort for Tomas Pink aficionados. Wheeler describes his approach to growth as that of a tortoise rather than a hare. And he
cautions against this year’s go-to for ambitious businesses; developing markets: “You’ve got to be careful; there’s an awful lot of people who have tried and failed. If you are thinking about somewhere like China, India or Brazil then you should find a very good partner in that country.” Although Charles Tyrwhitt’s main international markets are the US and Germany – both relatively low-growth economies, post-recession – Wheeler is happy with incremental growth. “I don’t want to have a lot of stores. George Street is a fantastic street that allows us to stand-
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