RETAILER PROFILE | Draw A Bath
You can combat the threat from online by majoring on service
Mark Cunningham and Royden Evans both left good careers behind them to start up their own high-end bathroom showroom Draw A Bath in Heswall. What made them do it? Chris Frankland finds out
Y
ou’ve got to admire the guys at Draw A Bath. Mark Cunningham left a promising career as an area sales manager with
Ideal Bathrooms and Royden Evans was a successful entrepreneur, having built from scratch a £25 million e-commerce bathroom business. They left all that behind to open up a high-end bathroom showroom in Heswall. You’ve also got to admire the fact they were shortlisted for New Bathroom Showroom of the Year in the 2020 kbbreview Retail & Design Awards, despite only opening in October 2018. So it seems they knew very well what they were doing when they set up on their own. After all, with 40 years’ industry experience between them, they were no rookies. They could see online sellers were gaining ground and Evans, as a former online trader, knew that only too well. They asked themselves: can we come up with a scalable business model that is robust enough to stand fi rm against the online onslaught? And would potential customers see enough value to pay a premium price for premium products and service? Their answer was a resounding ‘yes’. They chose a high-street location in the affl uent town of Heswall, in the Wirral, where a study of the local demographics had shown them they would fi nd the right kind of customers.
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Evans tells kbbreview that – pre-pandemic anyway – the high street in Heswall was thriving and at 7am there are always queues of cars outside the
it always has
showroom.
So Draw A Bath makes sure
two
stunning window displays to catch the eyes of passers-by.
But now they have got a couple of years under their belt, they are fi nding that referrals are growing.
The concept was a straight- forward one. The small 1,000sq ft showroom would deal with carefully selected premium brands – namely Dornbracht, Duravit, Porcelanosa, Artelinea, Imperial, Geberit, Matki and Effegibi. It would present itself more as a concept showroom, with just fi ve complete room sets and nine individual displays. Cunningham explains: “It was never the intention to collect as many brands as we
Mark Cunningham (left) and Royden Evans · May 2021
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