Draw A Bath | RETAILER PROFILE
Pretty much every job we do looks completely different. We tailor the products to the individual client and project and that is a huge
differentiator for us Royden Evans, co-owner
Artelinea Monolite vanity and tall unit and Flash mirror with Dornbracht Vaia brassware
could and display as much product as we could. We wanted to be a lot more focused. In a world where customers spend so much time looking online at the infi nite amount of product, it is incredibly confusing. So, to be able to walk into our showroom and choose only from what Royd and I, with 40 years of experience, have narrowed down to what we perceive as the best product offering, is quite refreshing for customers.” Evans left school at 16 and went straight into the plumbing and heating industry, working his way up to branch manager at City Plumbing. He left in 2007 and set up his own e-commerce business, Plumb Nation. In 2013, he was approached by Travis Perkins to sell the business to them, which by then was turning over around £25 million.
He recalls: “In 2007 when I started, margins were reasonably healthy and then more and more people entered the online arena. It was a race to the bottom. We never wanted to be the cheapest, but we always had to be. Margins got eroded, but we had volume. “The Travis Perkins offer was too good to walk away from. I needed to move on and get a fresh start, and I was used to working for myself.”
May 2021 ·
It was through his Plumb Nation business that he met Cunningham, who was an area sales manager for Ideal Bathrooms. He says he was impressed with Cunningham, who he recalls was really proactive and worked with him to grow Plumb Nation’s spend with Ideal Bathrooms signifi cantly over the years. And so it was on a fateful customer rewards trip to Mauritius that they fi rst discussed starting their own retail showroom.
The service element
Cunningham spells out their underlying ethos: “Online kitchen and bathroom retail over the years has continued to grow and that will never reverse. But the service element of a showroom is very diffi cult to replicate online. So that really is where we have made it. The showroom has so many service elements attached to it that if you take those away, you are completely exposed to online. Put them back in and you are quite well protected. If you come into our showroom, what you are actually buying is not just the product, but the service – our expertise, our design, installation. This is critical and pivotal to combating the online threat.
“Over the past two years, we have demonstrated you can successfully combat the threat from online by majoring on service. We look after customers from end to end. You are not just buying a bathroom suite from us, you are buying everything – the tiles, spotlights, the extractor fan, etc, so the average order value is much higher.” Evans confi des that a key element of the offering is design and adds that no two bathrooms they do are the same. He says: “Pretty much every job we do looks completely different. We tailor the products
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