the BIG interview


Labour of Love N


ailsea Electrical was started by Pete Gilks in 1985 and his son, Ben, took the


business over in 2004, aged just 19. On Monday, May 17, 2021, the rebranded business, NE Appliances, opened its new 15,000sq ft store on the Enterprise Trading Centre in Hengrove, Bristol. However, the initial idea for the rebranded business came seven years ago. Ben says: “In 2014, I bought the domain name neappliances.com. I had a business model in my mind, for the online side of the business. It was time to change the name, Nailsea Electrical, as we haven’t been in Nailsea for a long time and Electricals isn’t really the right word to be advertising appliances. NE Appliances was always at the back of my mind, but I knew at some point that I wanted to take this identity online and I wanted to deliver nationally – it was really the only way of upping my business.” Ben says the business outgrew its previous


premises – on Gloucester Road in Bristol – five years ago. He says: “As soon as the first lockdown came in, I went home for three days and just sat there


16 | www.ierdaily.co.uk


thinking, what on earth was I going to do. “I owed all the suppliers at the end of the month and cashflow just disappeared overnight and at that point, I didn’t have a website capable of doing some serious business on a national scale and I didn’t have the branding – in the first week of lockdown, we surpassed what we did the previous year online on our website.” Buoyed by the customer response, Ben and


two other members of staff headed back to the store and answered the phones, sold over the phone, took web orders, and delivered products


‘‘ It was really the only way


of upping my business locally.


Ben says: “What it showed me was how much


of that replacement market I was losing as a retailer. All my business on Gloucester Road was at the luxury end of the market – aimed at somebody that wants to come into the store, purchase a load of built-in product or purchase


Bristol-based independent retailer Ben Gilks has rebranded his business, opened a new store and developed a website capable of handling national sales. Simon King headed to Bristol to find out more


a rangecooker and touch and feel the product. “That’s what my business was all about –


we didn’t sell many washing machines, we didn’t sell many freestanding dishwashers, our market wasn’t replacement. Overnight, the replacement market kicked in. It was triggered by our website, and people just needed stuff. We sold more washing machines in the first month of lockdown than we did in the previous six months.” Ben started the ball rolling and a friend of


his, who had their own successful e-commerce business and extensive experience in building e-commerce websites, agreed to build the new website. “We now have a website fully capable of competing with everybody,” Ben says. “The website is working really well now. We’ve been testing it for the last six months and the logistical side of things is going well.” Ben says that, initially, his plan was to just


develop the website. “I couldn’t see beyond that,” he says. “I thought if I could get a warehouse, I could run an online business from my office and it would


May & June 2021


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