question & answer


Growing market boosts business at Hughes Electrical


A Q&A with Mark Wardell, managing director of Hughes Electrical


Can you tell us about your background and also your work with Hughes before you took up your current role?


I joined Hughes in 1999, while still at school as my dad insisted I get a ‘Saturday’ job. As well as Hughes I was offered a role at Woolworths, so that was my first good career decision! At 21 I managed my first store in Ely, before


moving to larger ones in Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds. After the acquisition of Apollo, I managed the Sutton Coldfield store before moving into area management. When a position on the board became


available to look after the rental side of our business, I took it and moved back to East Anglia.


I completed an MBA at Cranfield which put me in a good position to take over the managing director role from Robert Hughes in April 2020 – just as COVID-19 hit!


How did Hughes Electrical trade during the COVID-19 pandemic? We performed well through the pandemic. Our business benefited from a good split in routes to market – when shops were closed our web sales more than doubled and even when stores re-opened we saw little drop off in online business.


Our B2B division managed


customers affected by COVID, some negatively while others positively, and matched the previous year’s performance. Our rental base performed ahead of expectation and proved very stable across the year. We also benefited from a growing market allowing us to end the financial year 19% ahead. COVID gave us an opportunity to kick start


a refit programme last year. We will continue to invest in our workspaces with our Haverhill, Felixstowe and Beccles stores all getting a refit along with our Ipswich call centre and depot.


What is your forecast for how the industry will bounce back from the pandemic? The industry has performed very well during the pandemic as consumers look to invest in their homes, combined with the ability to work comfortably from the home. We believe there is still significant opportunity as an increasing number of people look to mix office and home working moving forward. We also anticipate the significant savings consumers have accumulated to continue to benefit our industry over, for instance, the travel industry. If all that wasn’t enough, we have an amazing summer of sport ahead of us which tends to support our industry sales.


How are sales spilt between the various elements of Hughes Electrical? Hughes has four routes to market – shops, web, trade and rental and pre-COVID each was broadly the same size as the other. This was exactly the way we like it for as we know, the sturdiest table is supported by four equal sized legs. We have been very conscious of the consumer


drift online and over the last six years have reduced our shop portfolio from 46 stores to 32 at present. We have no immediate plans to shut anymore but in the longer term this depends on the extent customers choose to return to shops once a new normal is established.


What is your vision for Hughes Electrical under your leadership? We need to be the best at what we do. That sounds obvious but so many businesses are constantly chasing new things or that elusive ‘profit winner’ that they lose sight of their core offering. We are an electrical retailer and need to be the best at showcasing, demonstrating, selling, and servicing domestic electrical products. As the business grows and consumer


behaviours shift, we need to ensure our customers remain at the centre of our operation. A real-world example of us making this happen is customer feedback groups which we will start this year.


What one bit of advice can you offer to fellow readers of IER? I believe in the constant evolving and investment within your core proposition, then constantly striving to match this proposition in the most effective way to where your consumers actually are. If that is web then you have to do the web really well from product information, payment solutions and support – all of which are constantly evolving within themselves.


10 | www.ierdaily.co.uk May & June 2021


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