Retailer profile
Social whirl
F
Kirit and Sam Patel have been enjoying the fruits of a successful social media strategy at their two stores in St Albans and Letchworth. Lewis Eckett discovered how tweeting has boosted toy sales.
or Kirit Patel, the answer to the question: Why St Albans? Is, Why not St Albans? When casting around for a retail business with his brother Sam, they looked at the cathedral city in
Hertfordshire and decided that toys would fit really well.
Thus Cuthberts in the Christopher Place mini-
mall just off the high street was born just over two years ago. The brothers were aware that there was already an independent
toy and sports store in the town, but that it had moved to a less prominent 22 Toyworld
location and that there were two Argos outlets locally, but more importantly there was a gaping hole left in the toy retailing marketplace by the loss of Woolworths. So the location was good and the rental deal on a vacant shop was even better. It also helped that Kirit lives in St Albans so has a good feel for its retail rhythms, not to mention being nice to walk to work every day. “We started with Toymaster right away,” says Kirit. “They gave us a lot of help with choosing suppliers, marketing, merchandising and promoting the store. The result is a spick and span shop, well laid out and with shelves that let the product do the talking. It’s as far removed from the ‘bursting to overloading’ feel of many conventional toy shops across the UK and feels fresh and easy to shop. “We noticed that some stores stick with the
same stuff day in day out,” says Kirit. “We don’t rely on that: we change the physical look of the store regularly to keep customers interested. The windows for instance change every two weeks and we use one side to promote a single product to catch the customer’s eye. Kids will see that and take notice.” Cuthberts in St Albans has now been joined by
a sister store in Letchworth, which is its first year of trading and four times bigger. This second store supplements its income from the Cuthberts online operation, which is set up there. The brothers have also been looking around their local ‘cluster’ of towns looking for opportunities if the gap is there and there are deals to be done on the rent. “St Albans has been going two years now,” says
Kirit. “Year on year it’s about 11 per cent up – in fact the August just gone was up 20 per cent, which has been mirrored in the first half of September. “In Letchworth, we’re only in month 10, so it’s a
Smooth operator: Kirit Patel in the St Albans branch of Cuthberts.
little bit harder to gauge. But we’re determined to grow out of our turnover and profit and expand using our turnover and profit. We will grow the online business too and use Letchworth as the base for that as it has good order fulfilment capabilities and the team there handle all the logistics, packing, and shipping, not just within the UK but to Europe as well.” Kirit and Sam are working hard on enhancing
traffic to the site with social media and are leveraging the power of Twitter and Facebook after good experiences with previous businesses. Social media is also proving powerful in engaging with local parents and kids for the retail side of the operation. “We’ve engaged locally with mummy bloggers and been proactive in communicating with them via blogs and Twitter,” adds Kirit. “We give out coupons that can be redeemed in-store and talk about launches, brands, how products work and other
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