RETAILER PROFILE | Ivan Simpson Bathrooms and Kitchens
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1. The exterior of the showroom 2. Bathroom displays on the ground fl oor
The Mezzanine level is dedicated to displays of Pronorm kitchens
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that the mid to high level is still buoyant, with people wanting a branded product over a cheap one. “They want someone to take their hand and look after them – especially on the installation side. That’s now the most important thing.”
Strategy He’s also unconcerned by German websites like Reuter that heavily discount branded products. Some claim Reuter could decimate the market if they launched a concerted marketing campaign in the UK.
“But if you drill down, one of those sites only did £240,000 of business in the UK in the whole year,” he smiles. “If I was in Germany sitting with a website, I would strategically buy five or six showrooms in the UK and that’s my UK presence, and I can service all that at my prices.
“But they won’t do that. They’ve got the same overheads as I have – but they work on a reduced margin. They still have a big shed, staff, delivery costs, lighting, computers. People are brainwashed into thinking it’s cheaper on the internet, but nine times out of 10 it isn’t.
“When someone comes in and says they’ve seen it on the internet, we pull the site up and have a look. You’re not comparing apples with apples. They want a chrome radiator – on the site, it’s cheap but it’s in black. You look for chrome, it’s £399, it’s £25 more than we would sell it for. Usually they say, ‘why am I wasting my time?’ We use everyone else’s site to show how we can save them money.”
One big success story for the pair has been social media, and particularly home improvement website Houzz, which has apparently voted the store ‘Best for Service’ for the past four years. “Any social media going forward will help,” Simpson says. “It’s 24 hours a day. Images are important. For us, Instagram is getting one of the biggest hits, and a lot of people follow us on Facebook. They like the before, during and after photos.” Now in his sixties, Simpson will clearly be looking to pass the business on to Burns at some point down the line. “David is the new generation and I like his ideas,” he says. “The balance between kitchens and bathrooms will be about 50:50. We change five or six displays every year. “We’ll just hone the business more and more whereas a lot of companies can’t give you their five-year plan because they don’t know if they’ll still be trading. I hate people in the industry who say they’re going to do £4 million next year.
“If we’ve got a problem, we like to solve it before moving on.
We’ve been building this place for 17 years and when I retire Dave will be building it for another 17 years. It’s an evolution.”
kbbr 60 kbbreview · August 2019
Ivan Simpson on… Strategy
When everyone else is selling bathrooms for £5,000, we sell them at maybe £12,000 to £15,000. The people spending 12 grand on a bathroom then say, ‘I want a new kitchen and these people did a great job’. Then they see Pronorm and say, ‘wow, I’ve not seen anything like this before’.
Free displays I’ve always learnt if you give somebody a product for display you’ll never sell it.
It’s free, it’s sitting there, there’s no contact, no commitment. But give it to them at list price less 80% to 85%, they’ll put some money into it and try to make it work.
Buying British If there was an English manufacturer who could produce what we want then great,
but there isn’t. That’s why we supply Pronorm. The internet
I’d love to know what the average sale of bathroom products is on the web. I bet
it’s under £500. If you come here for a Villeroy and Boch toilet with a soft-close seat it’s £600. That’s the difference.
Home improvement shows
They never tell you the cost of labour or the time of it takes. Don’t look at the people in the bathroom, look at the mirror behind that shows you how much still isn’t fi nished. You can see where the tiling suddenly stops.
Staff I’d like to get a designer who’s been through an interior design course at university.
I want a clear, young mind where I can put my ethos across. Girl power
If you take 1,000 couples who come here for a bathroom, 150 of the men think they’ll make some of the decisions, but they don’t – it’s always the women. But on the kitchen side, the men are really passionate about it and do a lot of cooking. It’s an interesting shift.
Retirement I’ll retire when I don’t want to do it anymore.
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