SUPPLIER PROFILE | Caple
independent retailers. Lay tells me they have 10 retail customers being
fitted out as Caple Studios. “These aren’t our studios, they aren’t franchises,” explains Lay, “they are independent kitchen retailers. But we offer them the whole package and support them in various ways with their displays and designs and delivery into their consumers’ homes, which takes a lot of that stress away from them. We feature them on our website and push their business. It gives them one supplier that can do the whole thing for them. The first opened in 2021. We have six operating, we are fitting out two and we are in advanced talks with two others. The target is to add another five in 2023. It’s a big investment and it’s growing nicely.”
Lay adds that whereas franchises often bring people in from outside the KBB industry, those wishing to become a Caple Studio must be an existing Caple customer and have a proven record in selling kitchens.
“I sign up each one myself,” adds Lay. For their commitment to have no other brands apart from Caple in their showroom – apart from worktops, flooring and more complex lighting – we offer enhanced terms for displays and assistance with marketing from its own-house marketing team and can even give them help to develop their websites.”
Three of the Caple Studios have opened second showrooms and Lay explains that they all have control over what they display. He tells me about Hoth Kitchens. In its first showroom in Wootton Bassett high street, it displays a large number of Caple’s in-frame kitchens, whereas in its newly opened Ross-on-Wye showroom, it has mainly painted kitchens.
south Wales and from Hampshire down to the coast. Lay recalls: “We grew rapidly. We acquired three
other distribution companies – two in Bristol, one was a kitchen distributor and one was a bathroom distributor. We also acquired a company in Essex who were a kitchen, appliance and sinks and taps distributor. The company in Bristol was a kitchen furniture and sinks and taps distributor and that was the first time we got into that particular market. We grew a group of companies fairly rapidly and were successful. We focused on the kitchen specialist and we have remained focused on that area of the market ever since.”
We want our bricks- and-mortar retailers to make the best possible margins by protecting the product online. We have not lost control of our brand
Caple trades as Maurice Lay Distributors Ltd and was started in 1976. It was formed to distribute Zanussi appliances from Italy in the South-West,
Multi-brand In 1984, however, Zanussi was acquired by Electrolux, which did not use distributors and so, as Lay remembers, “we had to react pretty quickly as we lost a big chunk of our business”. And so, Caple evolved into a multi-brand distributor with depots all over the country. “We distributed some well-known brands and we have always had a strong belief that we should have things in stock. If you don’t have it in stock, you can’t sell it. So we took on quite a large sales force for a company of our size to get our message across to retailers. I wanted people knocking on doors and having a relationship with customers. And we continue that today. We have a large sales force where many of our competitors have run theirs down.”
And so they got to a key turning point. “I sat down with Maurice, who started the company and is still our chairman,” recalls Lay,
“and I said that in my opinion we should grow the sales force and focus on our Caple brand. We started selling Caple in the early Nineties. We created a brand that was competitive for the trade and we maintained a high-quality product.”
In time, the decision was taken to remove all other
brands from the Maurice Lay portfolio and continue with Cape only.
The brand is still entirely owned by the original family and Lay says he has every intention of keeping it that way. He adds that “we are the only brand that sells kitchen furniture, appliances and sinks and taps under the same brand”.
Lay says that they kept all of the good things that a distributor does and turned it into a brand. He says they do everything – design, produce, market, service, warehouse and distribute.
Caple also prides itself on keeping plenty of stock and aims for 97% availability. “If someone wants it quickly, I can deliver it from A to B in a short period of time as it is in stock,” says Lay.
The lead time for its kitchen furniture is typically three weeks – and that is for any cabinet size required. It also offers a paint-to-order service. For in-frame kitchens there is a six-week lead time and most are one-off sizes.
Stock For appliances and sinks and taps, these are shipped within 48 hours of an order. “We will reserve that stock for retailers. They can tie stock down in my warehouse, and it won’t affect their credit limit until I deliver the product. That has been very important over the past two or three years as our customers’ cash flow hasn’t been negatively affected by having to tie stock down for a long period of time.” Caple’s kitchens are made in the UK and its appliances are sourced from Europe and the Far East. But as Lay points out: “We manufacture and produce to a standard and it’s our standard. Anything we sell has to be of the highest standard.” Yet Caple has always believed in offering affordable
quality. “Just because we have a lot of features, it doesn’t mean they’re not affordable. I have never wanted to sell the cheapest products on the market.
34 · January 2023
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