end of the three months, when it would have a solution in place – well, 24 years later, we’re still here. “We saw an opportunity to refurbish products and Electrolux gave us a one-year contract. At that time, the factory staff were being made redundant, so we hired people with 20, 30 and 40 years’ experience in making and fixing vacuums to come and work for us. “When we started, we had about 25 skilled
Electrolux staff that joined us – it was a bit of a eureka moment. A P Taylor started predominantly working with Electrolux, but then after a few years it signed a contract with Hoover. “We took on all of its returns and this brought
big green savings,” Ross said. “Returns used to get collected by lorry and sent to Scotland for processing and then sent back down to England for sale. We obviously stopped all that and started to centrally process it at our facility. “We then went to Vax and positioned
ourselves as floorcare experts. We developed the staff and started to grow, but it really took off after those three contracts.” A P Taylor then started looking at the small domestic appliances category. Fast forward to today and the business has 15
contracts and 125 staff. “We’ve got a 50,000 square foot warehouse,
and two sites around the country in Crewe and Stevenage,” Ross said. “A P Taylor offers a total solution for product
returns. We go into retailers on a daily basis and our lorries will collect 26 pallets of mixed returns from all of our different clients and we will bring that back.” Central to A P Taylor’s work is how it works with its manufacturer clients. “Our clients want to know what went wrong and our reports, in real time, go back to the Chinese factories,” Ross said. “Engineers in China are looking at our data on a daily basis, and making changes to the production to stop that product being returned. “Using a fan, as a product example, we get to a point where we now understand what’s going wrong with it and we get asked what we’re prepared to pay for the broken fan – we buy every single broken product from our clients and we refurbish them.” Ross claimed that his company’s
refurbishment rate is the highest in the UK. “Out of 100% of the products, we refurbish about 91%,” Ross said. “Only 9% end up in a state where they can’t be fixed and these are stripped down for parts; so that when your fan comes back next time and it needs a part, we’ve already got that part. “The 1%-2% that can’t be reused is recycled.
October/November 2022 ‘‘ Out of 100% of the products,
we refurbish about 91%,” Ross said. “Only 9% end up in a state where they can’t be fixed and these are stripped down for parts.
We are a zero landfill company – nothing that we handle goes to landfill.” A P Taylor handles around 750,000 returns a
year. “So, we’re stopping 750,000 broken products
that would potentially end up at a council tip,” Ross said. “We’re now a reuse economy; people are no longer worried about buying refurbished products. For example, we will sell a refurbished vacuum cleaner at 50%-60% of it original retail price.
“Ultimately, the performance of that product
is exactly the same as if it was bought brand new.”
No fault-found returns are a real bane for
retailers and products are usually returned because customers don’t understand how they work, or have simply changed their mind. “When I started, the amount of perfect
products coming back was around 6%, but now it’s roughly 20-25%.” Ross said. “As a refurbished retailer, we see a lot of
spikes on paydays and pension days. People land on our website and are very aware that they’re getting a value for money product. “Since COP 26, we’re seeing a high increase in enquiries, not just from companies, but from end users. We’ve started to get people calling us and asking if they can drop their product to us, because they don’t want to throw it in the tip.” Ross said that people are now looking at
how we reduce carbon and how we reduce our overall impact and environment.
A P Taylor Next Generation is looking at
reductions in carbon and helping people. “We’re offering a repair service to local
people,” Ross said. “The idea is that anybody locally if they wanted to repair a product, rather than just scrap it, we’re offering a service. “But we’re also offering a service to our
customers now, that allows us to handle in-warranty products and out-of-warranty products. For out of warranty products, we will be able to collect that product from a customer, bring it here, repair it and return it to the customer. “If you’ve spent £200 on a vacuum cleaner, it’s a lot easier to repair it for £30 or £40, than it is to go and spend another £200.” Ross added: “We’re just setting up in-warranty
services for our clients. We are now offering a service that allows collection from the customer’s house, the product bought back, serviced or repaired, and sent back to house all under the guarantee, and paid for by the manufacturer.” By the end of 2022, Ross is hoping to have
an app, which will make the process even more seamless. “The aim is to have an app that allows
you anywhere in the country to type in your postcode, and the courier will pick it up and bring it to us, where we’ll repair it and send it back,” Ross said. “I’m hoping that by the end of the year we
will have it fully operational. Ultimately, I’m trying to reintroduce a repair shop for small domestic appliances on a national scale.” Ross said that independent electrical retailers
across the country are sending products to A P Taylor. “We can collect one product and pay that
retailer for that product,” Ross said. Ross said that A P Taylor buys a large amount of clearance products. “For example, we’ll buy 5,000 microwaves and
offer trade deals to independent retailers and wholesalers,” Ross said. Ross said the biggest growth area for A P
Taylor is in cordless vacuum cleaners. A P Taylor is regulated by the Environment
Agency. “We have to report on everything we do,
from the product coming in, to the parts we use,” Ross said. “In 23 years, we’ve handled well over 10 million products; we were handling about 100,000 a year for Electrolux.” Looking at the speed of the operation, Ross
said: “We bring in products on a Monday, for example, and we can bring it in, report, analyse, refurbish and sell it within four days. “It’s a four-day turnover for 90% of the stock.”
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