RETAILER PROFILE | Bold Kitchens
Some appliance brands don’t
understand the pain retailers go through
do for him,” Turton explains. “As it was so early in the formation of the business,
I recommended other
businesses to take the work on. “I said they could use my premises
to meet the client who wanted Nobilia kitchens and Bosch appliances. “Six weeks later, the client walked, let down by the other businesses I had put him in touch with. I asked Nobilia for some help and they said that if I ordered more than three kitchens, they’d deliver straight to the site in Cornwall from Germany.” Turton worked out the costings and the £40,000 job was paid for by the client immediately
Suppliers
Going back to dealing with the right suppliers, and as someone who knows the appliances industry, who has Turton chosen to partner with? He says that although the supply of appliances is better than it was in 2022, he’s still having to chop and change the brands he works with, particularly on refrigeration. He has recently added Haier to his range of appliances.
“As a kitchen retailer, you can only sell what you can get hold of,” says Turton. “I liked the Haier products and the cost of display was minimal.” He also adds: “Some appliance brands just do not live in the real world and they don’t understand the pain that kitchen retailers go through.” In terms of business, Turton says:
“We’re not chasing five kitchens a week. That’s not what we set out to be. We don’t generally do back-to- back work.”
And central to his business is the simple system that the Turton’s have devised. He explains: “We’re open and honest and we’re very visible in terms of the way we work. You order the kitchen from us, and you pay for your furniture.
72
“I pay Nobilia upfront. And yet some kitchen studios still work on customers giving a 10% deposit and paying the balance when it’s finished.” When asked about how big a consideration sustainability is for his customers, Turton quickly responds that he has not had one customer who has been interested in
sustainability or how much it costs to run an appliance. Looking ahead, Turton is confident, but reflects that Bold ended 2023 slightly down on the year before: “As an independent, I don’t need to do many jobs to survive. A lot of retailers, Bold Kitchens included, have sold a lot less kitchens, but the order values
A CHALLENGING YEAR AHEAD
Turton says that other kitchen retailers have told him that they have very little work on for Q1 of this year. “We had the boost from Covid because people couldn’t spend any money, and then we had a
boost here because house prices increased – prices stood still for 15 years and then, all of a sudden, they shot up.” Turton adds: “We’ve been open five years and 2023 was the hardest year, and I don’t just mean in terms of sales, but also in terms of customers and their expectations, and supply. “Suppliers are starting to come out of the woodwork now. Prior to 2023, we had only seen seven reps since we opened, other than the ones we’d asked to come here.
“Now, we are starting to get phone calls and offers
on furniture and appliances.” He adds: “Trade is OK, but I wouldn’t say it’s back
to pre-Covid levels. I don’t think it’ll ever get back to that, because some manufacturers are making nice profits without having to carry the huge stocks they once did. “There’s only one company that I’m aware of that
has dropped its prices, and that’s Caple, which has dropped quite a lot of products down.” Turton says that the challenge for kitchen retailers is the next generation of customers coming along. “The next generation has an almost ‘disposable’ outlook,” he says. “They will walk into a shop and buy something on impulse. They’ll spend money like it’s going out of fashion because they’ve never seen a true recession. So 2024 is going to be interesting in kitchen retailing.”
• February 2024
are massively higher. Our order values have probably increased by 30%.” Turton also says that he is getting more projects that are larger: “We’re getting more turnkey jobs, where as well as designing and fitting the kitchen, customers want us to do the floor as well.”
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 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
