Around 85 per cent of Herbert Todd & Son’s business is white goods – it also sells CE, kitchen furniture, bathrooms and bedrooms. “At one time it was 70 percent electrical contracting and 30
percent brown goods,” says Graham, adding: “It’s surprising how it’s changed.” The business also has a store in Harrogate, which is in a secondary location and within walking distance of the town centre. “We do very well with range cooking and side-by-side
refrigeration in Harrogate – nice, big and expensive products – but we’ve always struggled to get traction with everyday purchases,” says Matthew. “It’s slightly strange, but because Harrogate was without a quality independent for such a long time, a lot of people go straight online when they need a quick replacement.”
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I’ve always thought it’s impossible to have an electrical outlet in a main town centre – you just can’t make enough money to pay the rates
Lockdown The initial days of lockdown were difficult for Herbert Todd & Son. “The stores were shut and the phones were dead. There was just me and one of the girls working for us – we employ 27 people – and we decided to get our paperwork up to date and then see what happened,” says Matthew. “It was very scary – I took out the biggest Covid loan I could get from the bank, just in case, as we didn’t know where and when it was all going to end. Then, after a week, the phones started ringing.
“We were halfway through the calendar year and we were 50
percent of what our normal turnover would be at that point – we were wondering ‘where is this going to go?’” He adds: “Slowly but surely it came back. People were buying
any sort of freezer – we couldn’t get our hands on enough. We also sold a bit of TV during the later lockdowns, as people were bored at home.”
Healthy Matthew says that on the retail side things are now okay – the past year has been healthy, thanks to consumers having more disposable income. So, five years on from opening the new store, what’s next? “We’re evolving – we’re still changing things round,” he tells Alert. “The TV side of our business has become a lot smaller to make space for other things which, potentially, add more to the bottom line. Our mezzanine floor is now all showroom space for kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms – it used to be divided in half for TV and storage space. “You’ve got to have a decent amount of space. Why are people going to come to your store unless you have a proper amount of products laid out, plugged-in and with people who know how to demonstrate them? They won’t bother coming unless you give them an experience of some sort. This was undoubtedly the right move for us.”
Herbert Todd & Son: the history
Graham Todd, partner of Herbert Todd & Son, gives us the background to his business.
My father started it as a purely electrical contracting business – that was in 1936, in Huntington, a village just outside York. He did very well but then the War came along and he had to shut everything down. It reopened after the War in the family home in Barbican Road, in York. There were offices, workshops and stores, as well as extensive parking. He stayed there until 1952 and then moved to Castlegate, in
the centre of York. There was a showroom run by my mother. She soon opened a dedicated retail shop in Tower Street 100 yards across the road – mainly lighting but also appliances. The ‘Hotpoint Empress’ was the washing machine then,
but we were also the largest retailer of the Parnall, an economic competitor. The lighting showroom moved from Tower Street, which used to flood, to Low Petergate – a tourist street.
34 Dealer Focus: Herbert Todd & Son Graham Todd, in 1976 The Petergate store in York I’m an electrical engineer – I was the last student apprentice
at the North Eastern Electricity Board, gaining membership of the IEE after four years at Leeds Polytechnic. I became a commercial engineer, then joined the business
in 1972 after a couple of years with Shepherds, estimating and managing construction sites. My father and I discussed television rental and decided that it would add to the stability of the business. I managed to get a Social Science Research Council scholarship for a year to do a Diploma in Management Studies (DMS) – the forerunner of an MBA – which was great. That introduced me to marketing and I became an enthusiastic marketeer. Funnily enough, my daughter graduated in Business Studies and Marketing and did the marketing for the Royal Bank of Scotland as part of its sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympics.
Dealer Focus
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