RETAILER PROFILE | Anglia Interiors
WORDS OF WISDOM PETER AND ARRON ON…
SUSTAINABILITY Arron: I’ve seen some big changes in manufacturers’ processes to make machines more efficient, or handle waste better. But they absolutely should be doing that – and I think it’s their responsibility. Most consumers sadly don’t worry about where their old kitchens are going. I’d say they’re interested in sustainability up until you mention how much it might cost.
extra mile. Well, that’s no different at Anglia Interiors.
“People go around showrooms. But what do they learn when they go home?” Peter asks. “You need to make the effort to talk to them and show them what you do.
“Get them interested in what you do. If you don’t, they’ll go to five or six other showrooms, and let me tell you, someone else will.”
Aaron believes that there may be too much choice in the market for the average consumer now, so it’s the role of independent retailers like Anglia Interiors to try to make the process as simple as possible.
“Customers see the purchase as a
whole, but you need to try and see what kind of values they put on the individual parts of the kitchen,” Peter elaborates. “Retailers see cost in four segments: worktops, units, appliances, and associated fittings. But consumers see it all as one whole amount.”
Part of that customer simplification extends to how the business handles its work. When a customer agrees to go ahead with a new project, Arron sets up a Whatsapp group chat named after the client’s address. Everyone at the business is added in – along with the customer themselves – in an effort to be fully transparent and keep them informed. “It means they can keep up to date with what’s happen ing even if they’re out of the house, or away on holiday,” says Arron.
Peter Bird
Decades of amassed industry knowledge is another factor that Peter and Arron believe gives them an advantage over the competition – particularly the national retailers. A lot of Anglia Interiors’ business comes
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from those who have been dissatisfied with larger kitchen retail corporations. “We deal with people, and that’s why these small family businesses are successful, because you, as a client, you deal with people,” Arron says. “The large sheds aren’t able to offer you that personal service, although they can be cheaper.”
Professional
We did wonder if we’d get a Royal plaque for that. We never did, but I’d still settle for a knighthood
Peter agrees, saying that he’s noticed how there isn’t as much so called “product knowledge” in the industry as he used to see. “I can bore people to death talking about carcasses and hinges – and you don’t necessarily get that in the sheds – but this business still runs on that.” Arron
continues:
“The most important thing is that the
customer’s expectation of you should be greater than the sheds. You’re offering a professional design service backed up by decades of experience.” This unique level of knowledge is undoubtedly a benefit for the business. Peter is eager to tell me that Anglia Interiors’ most famous customer is John Major, who was Prime Minister of
the UK for most of the 1990s, who wanted a nice kitchen after his retirement from politics. It’s a testament to Anglia Interiors’ skill that someone who made a career out of building political cabinets trusted them enough to install his own.
As a modern company with historical roots, the pair are both well placed to have watched the industry develop and change over the past half-century. One of
the things they think has
changed massively in recent years is the way that suppliers communicate with independent retailers.
Peter explains how he used to know the head of finance at one of the leading appliance suppliers on a first name basis. “You could get through to her, tell her what you needed, and they’d do their best to help you out.” Aaron agrees that supplier commu nication has changed in recent years. “There was a more genuine feeling to people before,” he says, “and now it’s a little bit more corporate. You’re just a name on a screen now.”
When so many retailers have closed their doors over the past 50 years, what’s Anglia Interiors’ secret? Arron says “good service” at the exact same moment that Peter says “bloody hard work”. After considering a bit more, Arron reflects that the business’s
secret is probably best summed up as “looking after your staff, and remem- bering what it’s all about”. He adds: “It’s not all about the quick Don’t
buck. undervalue yourself
SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIPS Peter: For my first 20 years in business, you knew pretty much everybody by name, and they all knew you. It’s still the same industry, but the way that people contact each other has changed. Before, you perhaps didn’t know the people who’d be loading up the lorries, but you knew everybody who got the orders up or did the sales. That’s all gone now and it’s all order numbers and waiting on hold.
DIVERSIFYING BUSINESS Arron: I think stick to what you know, unless you’re really confident. Home offices, bathrooms, bed - rooms – they all come under that same umbrella of home improve- ment, but you’ve got to be good at all of them, or else you could mess up your reputation.
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don’t make yourself a busy fool, and never be ashamed of your price.” Peter agrees wholeheartedly, and also says that at the end of his long career, the satisfaction of a job well done is its own reward too. He enthusiastically recalls: “Just before Covid, a man came in here and asked for me by name – turns out, I’d done a kitchen for him 42 years ago, and now after all this time he wanted another! The only thing he’d changed in all those years was that he’d had the worktop replaced.”
This April, Anglia Interiors is set to celebrate its big 50-year anniversary. Although the Anglia Interiors team plans to celebrate the business’s success at the showroom, Peter also likes to think that its story could serve as inspiration to others in the industry. “Kitchens were just beginning back industry was in
then, and the its
infancy. Not at all like how it is now, obviously. I’m proud that the business has gone on for 50 years. I hope that if people hear about us, it might give them a bit of hope in this day and age. If you’d just started one now, would you not aspire to that?”
• March 2024
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