Meanwhile, CIH/Euronics has a trial on in 20
stores around electronic price tickets. “Manufacturers are supporting this because
they really want to see this digital revolution,” Steve said. “They want to know where their stock is, where it’s on display, and push customers, hopefully, towards those showrooms to see the products – people still want to touch and feel products, especially on the premium products. “In my business, the shops that have
electronic ticketing, saw a 1% gross profit increase. The time it saves my staff now going
around checking every price every morning is unbelievable, so they can get back to what they’re good at, and that’s selling.” For the CIH/Euronics trial, the buying and
marketing group has gone with each of the five major EPOS suppliers into the industry to make sure that they’re all aligned with it. Steve said: “That’s a major benefit for those companies – Calculus, CefaSoft, Cromwell, Glenfield and Reference Point. “For the trial, we purposely chose members that had different systems and we’ve actually got one member who’s got his own dedicated system as well, so we’re going to trial that as well.”
Under Steve’s tenure as chairman, CIH has become a lot more professional, and Steve said that having Paul Tyler in as the group’s chief executive has really helped that. “With his knowledge from BSH, Paul has helped in shaping how we deal with manufacturers better,” Steve said. “There used to be a slight them and us attitude, but we’re now working a lot more collaboratively, which is what I wanted.” Looking back to the pandemic, Steve said that this helped most retailers during that period. “While it was not a nice period, it definitely helped a lot of members out there go back to profit,” Steve said. “For that period, we put a lot of people on
furlough, and we went back to basics. The learning from that experience was that I was too
October/November 2022
distanced from my shops.” During the pandemic, Steve closed every store and moved into a central warehouse location. “We had five staff instead of 35 in the shops, doing 65% of the business,” he said. “It was like the old days where you’re so busy, you couldn’t have lunch, you were just working from 8.30am until 8pm clearing up the paperwork that you’d done on a massive day of sales – that was fantastic fun. “When we reopened, we decided to close on
Sundays, and in a six-day week I’m doing more business than I’ve ever done.” Steve said that because he is was doing so
much for CIH, he can’t push his company as far forward as he wants to. “My son coming into the business on a one-
year internship was a breath of fresh air, and he helped in a massive way,” Steve said. “Other staff have taken the reins when I’ve been busy with CIH stuff and I know it’s a
challenge for them. I want to make sure that CIH is in great shape, because my business survives because CIH does its job – without CIH, I don’t think I’d have the business I have now. “That’s because every member comes
together to create a buying group that is the best buying group in the UK, you can see that through turnover figures and membership numbers. “As independents, we’re all in the same boat,
why do we need to fight ourselves? We’ve only got a small part of the pie, although it’s getting bigger – we should go after the nationals, not ourselves.” Steve said that CIH’s product information management (PIM) system is in beta testing and when it’s launched, it will go out to the membership. “It ties in with the price comparison tool
we give members free, which matches 20 of the top online guys on 5,000 SKUs twice a day, every day,” Steve said. “It tells you if it’s got voucher codes on it and no other scraping software does – it’s free to the membership and is a tool they need.” Looking ahead Steve said that Mark’s two
sons now work for the company and Steve’s eldest son would like to come back and look at the website side of the business. “Not every generation wants to get into
electrical retailing,” Steve said. “The business that I run supports a lot of families and when my dad passed the business to me before he died, he said you’ll never own this, all you are is a custodian of the business. “We always look after the staff – we’ve got 10 staff now that are more than 25 years’ service; Mark’s on 40+ years and I’ve been in the business 33 years and loved every minute of it.” Steve said the company’s website is a concentrated area and it is rolling out electronic tickets to all stores, as well as the electronic signage. “On Mark’s side, we want to increase the amount of engineers we have.”
www.ierdaily.co.uk | 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
