RETAILER PROFILE | Birkdale Kitchen Company
Birkdale has a separate room dedicated to
connected appliances
Here customers are invited to interact with the appliances
projects. That will only evolve and we will start to incorporate the infrastructure into the showroom and show customers the kinds of things they can do – and not just in the kitchen. We will be resellers of that product and technology, so we might well expand our offering into their lounge, bedrooms, etc. I can see us going more down the whole-home route with that element of the product mix.” Getting back to that award-winning showroom, there are seven modern displays from Leicht and one traditional style kitchen from Symphony.
Says Gokcen: “Steve’s idea was to go for larger displays. It is difficult for people to work out how their kitchen will look from just seeing half a run.” And why Leicht?
“A good friend of ours had
important to us to work with the right suppliers that we knew would be right for us long-term.”
Gokcen explains how Leicht worked with them to help design the showroom layout. “We asked them to create something that they thought could work in this space,” he recalls, “hence the room within a room [which became the connected room], which we probably wouldn’t have thought of. From that, we then added our own bells and whistles. Leicht were fabulous.”
There are many different ways to use this technology and people don’t always know you can do these things. That’s the idea behind this, so they go away saying ‘wow, I didn’t know you could do that
worked at BSH for 10 years and he was thinking about making a move to Leicht and we thought, well, if he is going to Leicht, it is worth a look. So we decided to go to Germany to look at the product and meet the people. It was very
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But the underlying plan was to create a welcoming experience. “People react well to it,” Gokcen tells me. “When they come in, it is friendly, warm, lots of things to play with and they can charge their phones on a wireless worktop charger. We even take care with the background music playing in the showroom. We might think ‘oh, we’ve got Mr and Mrs X coming in today, what
kind of music do we think they might like?’. “All these things are important. Lighting is impor- tant too. We are going to be installing some lights from a company called Zuma and they are also speakers, but they look like a normal spotlight.”
Gokcen is also pleased with their chosen location, which seemed from my brief walk around ‘the village’ to have a very artisan and creative, designer vibe to it. “It is an ABC1 demographic,” says Gokcen, “and nearby you have got Formby, where there are a lot of wealthy people, and there are lots of pockets of good areas within a 40-mile radius. We target our Google advertising accordingly, to be as smart as we can and tap into that market. We are very selective where we spend our money in terms of marketing.” Now 15 months into its trading life, Birkdale Kitchen Co is selling around five kitchens a month with a turnover of around £1.4 million from a standing start last April. Gokcen expects that they should hit £2.5m when things really get going.
Acknowledging the problems that appliance shortages have created in terms of completing projects, Gokcen says that he has been actively looking to expand their brand portfolio and has already invested in Miele, Fisher and Paykel and Novy – and he is actively looking at the Bora and also AEG.
As for the future, Gokcen tells me they’d like to invest in Virtual Worlds 4D Theatre, although Leicht products are not yet on there, and of course their ambitious plans to radically extend their involvement in the connected home should keep them busy. I can’t see them resting on their laurels, even if they are already our Showroom of the Year.
· October 2022
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