POOL & SPA INDUSTRY
A Spares Success Story For Spafix
BISHTA MEMBER AND FOUR TIME AWARDS CEREMONY SPONSOR, SPAFIX DIRECT HAVE GONE FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS TO WHOLESALE MASTER DISTRIBUTOR IN JUST FIVE YEARS
I
n September 2007, Darren Waters decided to go it alone and start again as a one-man-band after splitting from his business partner of three years.
Throwing caution to the wind, Darren left the comfort of a successful business, bought a van, set up a servicing website and a small office in his back bedroom and began taking on a small amount of work sourced through various contacts. The first six months were particularly difficult though with Darren saying: “My plan at this stage was to try and get through to the summer as I knew things would start to pick up.” During this initial start-up phase, the only work he could get were the jobs no one else wanted to do, but this is what he felt would give him the best training of all. “I really believe that if I hadn’t taken that step my knowledge would never be what it is today,” adds Darren. With a prosperous summer, the addition of a new member of staff and plans in place to introduce an online retail shop for hot tub spare parts by the name of Spafix Direct, the next step was to move into a small rented premises. On the back of the website being launched in July 2008, the move took place in October 2008. At this point, everything was going really well then, out of the blue, things took a turn for the worse. The American banking system was collapsing and on British shores the consumer credit crunch was well under way. “The phone virtually stopped ringing at one point and I was very nervous that this may have ended my fledgling business,” says Darren. At this time, Balboa Water Group had just acquired GG industries and Hydroair International, which meant that the GG plant in Herefordshire was closing down. Darren along with at least a dozen other companies were invited to go and have a look to
www.swimmingpoolnews.co.uk Darren Waters meeting the Trade
see what stock was available. “Before I went, I said to myself I would spend a maximum of £2,000 as things were really tight.” In the end, Darren was the only person who attended and as a result, got a deal which was too good to turn down. He ended up spending all of the £10,000, he had in the bank and cleared a large chunk of the Balboa stock.
Over the winter of 2008/09, Spafix Direct opened its doors to the trade and almost immediately began to take orders. This also coincided with the demise of Spaform and Darren’s first task was to replace the Spaform catalogue as he saw this as the key to moving the appropriate levels of stock in order to be able to deal direct with suppliers such as Waterway and Balboa. Initially starting with just 50 products on the website, it soon grew to over 300 SKUs. In the five years to date, Spafix Direct has continually evolved, with healthy increases year-on-year. In 2010, the company exhibited for the first time at SPATEX in Brighton and the Piscine show in Lyon. “When I look back now and think how I assumed breaking into Europe would be a ‘doddle’ based on the success of the UK business model, it was really quite short sighted. Customers will almost always buy
from their own country (if they can do so) you really do have to find a way to cut through the noise and sell your business in other ways.” Initially, the business in Europe was particularly slow going but, over a period of time working carefully with individual customers, this business also began to grow. The website is now available in French and in 2013, the company appointed a distributor in the Netherlands to cover the Benelux region.
In April 2011, recognising that there were now two completely different sides to the business, (one being mainly service for retail customers and the other being the sale of spare parts mostly to the trade), it was decided to split the company and operate under two separate roofs. Through continually reinvesting profits back into stock and infrastructure, the company has matured and the trade side now accounts for 95% of overall sales. With this in mind, Spafix Direct have taken the decision to switch off the retail element of the business and focus on wholesale distribution only as of 1 May 2014. There are plans ahead to re-brand the company, giving it a new identity later this year as despite being the largest re-seller of hot tub spare parts to the trade in the UK, Darren feels they are still viewed first and foremost as a service and repair business, and the trading name suggests they want to deal directly with the public. Today Darren employs a total of 19 staff within the Spafix group and currently Spafix Direct stocks over 1,400 product lines. Over the past year they have added over 200 new lines with more being added every week. A new catalogue is due for release this summer, with some exciting customer incentives being introduced via discount rewards and loyalty bonuses.
The Spafix warehouse
Spafix UK Ltd 023 9245 4455
www.spafixdirect.co.uk
SPN April 2014 37
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