Phoenix Bathrooms | SUPPLIER PROFILE


The


company’s showroom highlights the breadth of the brand’s portfolio


The brand’s


comprehensive range of brassware also on display at the company’s HQ


and pricing, they made the bold decision to stop dealing with merchants – a gradual process that began during Covid – so that it could concentrate on independent retailers as a point of difference from other brands. “The Phoenix of 2000 is a completely different business in 2023,” he says. “We’re not interested in that race to the bottom or trying to compete with anyone on price. Our strength is in the quality of our product, our staff, our service, and our stockholding – and that’s where we see we have the edge over other suppliers. “We’re aligning ourselves


with inde-


pendent retailers because


there’s an


obvious synergy between us on quality and service. At the end of the day, we all want the same thing – to make money. If Phoenix can make some,


and January 2023 · our


Sima furniture range in Parisian blue


customers can make some while delivering a product that the end consumer is happy with, it just makes sense. It’s a very simple business model, but if you get it right it works.” He adds: “We’re the busiest we’ve ever been and I put that down to the new ranges that we’re offering and the way we’re taking them to market.” The new strategy, he explains,


It’s our job to respond to what our retail partners need, and we always strive to be better


focuses predominantly on two levels of partnerships with its retailers – Platinum and Gold – and those categories are defined by turnover and display commitment as well as the willingness of the retailer to maintain and grow the relationship. “We have around 400 Platinum and Gold retailers,” he says. “There are a number of new targets or retailers we’re working with in some capacity but aren’t yet signed up to the Platinum or Gold status. With just the 400 retailers we work closely with now, we’re


ahead of the turnover we were doing when we had a customer base of almost 2,000.


“I can also confidently say that the majority of dealers that have com- mitted to ‘the new Phoenix’ have at least doubled, maybe even tripled, their turnover.”


One of the few positives to have emerged from the pandemic is the fact that the market is embracing colour and new styles. People are being more daring and are keen to inject their own style and personality into their homes because they’ve had more time to think about how they want their home to look – a trend that Richard says is prevalent and plays into its strengths as a supplier of the complete bathroom product portfolio. “It’s our job to respond to what our


retail partners need, and we always strive to be better than we are,” he says. “We’ve kept pushing that quality and that was part of the reason behind buying Acorn, so that we could be in control of our own destiny – making


our own products at the right quality. On the furniture side, we’re completely flexible, we don’t have to


wait for


anyone. If the market wants something, we can bring it to market quickly.”


What’s next? Last year, turnover hit the £11m mark, but Sharp and his team are ambitious. They are confident that, thanks to the new


investment


strategy in


and product its quality


constant and


service, they can triple that figure within the next three to five years. “We’re a flexible, fast-moving com- pany with no financial restraints,” he says. “We’re profitable, but we’re con- stantly reinvesting in the business to ensure that we make everything we do even better than before. “We launched the new strategy two years ago, but we spent one of those dealing with a pandemic, so we’re only a year into putting it into motion. And that is working with independent retailers to display our complete range of products.”


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