DESIGN | Showroom style Simply Kitchens, Plymouth


Showroom of the month


Simply Kitchens has built a destination kitchen and bedroom showroom in Plymouth to showcase its range of Symphony products and spark the imagination of its customers


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“O


ur objective was to capture customers’ imagination and ensure


that they spend more time in the showroom, particularly on their initial visit,” explains managing director Nathan Hopper.


“I am a firm believer that ‘people do business with people’. The more time a potential customer spends in our showroom, the greater chance we have to start building a relationship with them.” All of the displays are lifestyle settings to give an authentic experience of how the products work – everything down to the taps. When customers spend more time in-store, it has been shown to help them settle on a design and commit to an order. So a lot is resting on the company’s impressive new showroom.


“The inspiration behind the new show-


room was to create something different from most other local independents. We wanted to make it a destination store that was away from trading estates – somewhere we could be in control of the environment,” explains Hopper.


The destination store on the edge of Plymouth is targeted at the 50+, upper end of the market and a range of designs are featured from the traditional shaker-style and Laura Ashley to modern handleless. It also features the Freedom collection from Symphony, which caters for multigenerational living. There are 29 displays in the 850sq m


showroom and all are in lifestyle room sets. Customers are encouraged to roam freely around the showroom, and it has been designed to have a good flow and guide people around the range of products. The


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entire showroom has been purpose-built in cooperation with the Bailey Partnership, an architectural practice, the designers at Symphony and the team at Simply Kitchens. One unique aspect of the space is the cookery school and training room where customers can see the kitchens at work. This keeps customers coming back to the showroom for events even after they have bought their kitchen.


But Simply Kitchens does not just do kitchens, they also do bedrooms and studies. Kitchen are downstairs, while bedroom and study displays are upstairs. Hopper explains: “Kitchens are still our


core business and will always remain so. The bedroom and home study showroom is more about creating incremental business – adding another string to our bow.” Hopper is proud of the new showroom and hopes to provide the best experience for their customers. “Our job as the retailer is to offer an experience to the end-user that is as seamless and faultless as possible. As an independent, we must sell ourselves on service and reputation. I can think of far too many experiences in years gone by when we have let a customer down because of a failure on the part of a supplier. In life, we are quite capable of letting ourselves down, but when another party does it on your behalf, there is nothing worse.” Simply Kitchens is delighted to have teamed up with Symphony. “Too many suppliers hide behind the detachment from the end-user instead of taking ownership and assisting in resolving problems to the end user’s satisfaction. “Relationships between the retailer and the end-user can take months to build, but can be undone in seconds.”


kbbr kbbreview · September 2019


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