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RETAIL | Business check


HB How’s business? Hereford


This city on the River Wye counts a number of cider producers among its top employers, including Bulmers and Westons. With around 60,000 people, it is the largest town in Herefordshire and is home to a third of the county’s population. Unemployment at 2.9% is below the national average, but earnings are 15% lower than the average for England. The city is undergoing major regeneration, including 26,000 new homes over the coming 20 years


• Report: Francesca Seden PARTNER BRANDS


›› Westdown Bathrooms Imperial, Vado, Villeroy and Boch, Roca, Aqualisa, Roper Rhodes, Ambiance Bain, Adamsez, Laura Ashley, Clearwater and Burlington


›› Express Bathrooms, Kitchens, Tiles Crosswater, Merlyn, Roper Rhodes, Rak Ceramics, Bayswater, Burlington, Häcker, Symphony, JJO, Trend Interiors by Mereway


›› Hereford Kitchens Schüller kitchens, Ultima and BA Components, Franke and AEG


›› Signature Interiors Nolte, Mereway, 1810, Franke, CDA, BSH, Bora, Roca, Laufen, Geberit and Ellis fi tted furniture


HB Birmingham Hereford Cardiff London


Westdown Bathrooms Phil Davies, showroom manager


Sales are up and we’ve taken on more installers to deal with the work, so business is doing well. We employ our own as you have better control over the fi nished job.


I would attribute our success to our high levels of customer service. If there are ever any problems, we deal with them quickly to ensure the customer is happy. Brexit hasn’t really been too much of an issue for us. We tend to deal with good British brands, such as Matki, Merlyn, Vado, Utopia and Roper Rhodes, who have minimal annual price increases.


Hereford is a rural area and you might think people would go for a more traditional look, but this isn’t our experience. Our customers tend to go for the more contemporary styles. The more traditional look doesn’t tend to be as popular with our customers. I think this is just because, even in an older property, a contemporary-looking bathroom will look great. We’re pretty confi dent about things moving forward. We have about 10 weeks’


fi tting work, which we deal with on a week-by-week basis, so we have no problems there. There are also lots of houses being built, so I don’t see us being short of work anytime soon. We don’t do much on the contract side but we


work with a few smaller developers, because they are very easy to deal with.


One way that suppliers could help us would be to better protect showrooms against the internet. It’s important for us to know that we can quote the customers a price and not have them go online and fi nd it 30% cheaper.


82


Sales are up – we’ve taken on more installers


kbbreview · June 2019


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