FEATURE: COVID-19 FOCUS A Double-Edg
Paul Humphries, MD of Stockport-based flooring retailer Best4Flooring, shares the u its impact on his bu
2020 was always going to be an important year for us. Having moved into new larger premises in December 2019 with all the space we needed to bring in new products, a new website planned for the Spring and new machinery to aid efficiency... What could go wrong?
I remember first hearing the news about the pandemic in early January and could see the potential for some disruption for everyone, but nothing quite like we have seen so far this year.
When lockdown was finally announced, we decided to close. Once we had processed as many orders as we could, all the staff went home. With everybody on the new furlough scheme, we had no choice but to just sit and wait it out.
Understandably, we had many questions at this point. Was it really going to be as bad as they were saying in the press? What was it going to do to my business? How would it affect stock and my supply chain? How were my staff going to be affected? Was the government going to help businesses like mine? Ultimately... would I still be able to trade?
I did spend the first weekend of lockdown panicking and trying to work out what I was going to do. However, whilst I was doing that, our customers were busy placing orders on our website and, having reviewed the government guidelines, I decided to re-open if not at least to process the new influx
of orders. The order intake once we came back to work was relentless- it was all we could do to keep up. Our website traffic had gone through the roof as people, who now had no choice but to stay home, turned their attention to DIY.
“I did spend the first weekend of lockdown panicking and
trying to work out what I was going to do.”
Laying new flooring gave many people something positive to focus on and our social media channels were inundated with customers all wanting to share their latest DIY project online and tagging us in their new flooring posts. Ranges such as sheet vinyl and porcelain tile collections tripled in sales overnight, with monochromes, greys and prints all favoured designs by homeowners. Plus, our hints and tips for laying new flooring became one of the most popular pages on the website. Requests for expert help and product advice flooded into our customer service team. The residential side of the business was thriving.
12 | Tomorrow’s Retail Floors
www.tomorrowsretailfloors.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34
