retailer profile: tonwood home hardware
Family business embraces move into kitchens with Symphony
The Tonks family own Tonwood Home Hardware in Holbeach, Lincolnshire. Aſter joining the Sirius Buying Group in 2019, the business started selling Symphony kitchens in July. Simon King visited operations director Matt Tonks to hear how the business is developing its new proposition
H
olbeach is a market town eight miles from Spalding and the Tonks family
has owned the 10,000sq ſt store there since 2014. Matt, and his father Steve, first met Robert
Williamson, Symphony’s national business development manager, at the Sirius Trade Show in September 2019. At the same event in 2021, the deal was done and nine months later, the superb showroom opened for the first time. “We’ve had Symphony kitchens in-store since
July,” Matt said, “and it took six weeks to install. “We rearranged all of the ground floor of the
store, so that Symphony’s New England kitchen could be seen from the road.” With more than 10,000 people living in the
town, Matt said that there is a lot of building work going on, and most people living in the area are aged 50+. The store features nine full kitchens, one on
the ground floor and eight on the first floor. “To make space for the kitchens, we removed the racking areas that used to be on the first floor,” Matt said. “We inherited a lot of racking when we took over the shop, which wasn’t being used properly.”
Symphony New England Matt and Steve Tonks The store was established in 1953, and the
Tonks took it over in 2014. Matt worked at Homebase for 10 years after
school, starting on the checkouts and then worked his way up; Steve retired from the Civil Service with a lump sum and the family relocated to Lincolnshire from Somerset. Steve, his wife Liz, and Matt are co-directors of the business. “We’ve always sold appliances here, which
were predominately freestanding Hotpoint washing machines and tumble dryers,” Matt said. “We expanded that to different models and brands and joined Sirius, after Hotpoint recommended the buying group to us. “We tried our hand at built-in appliances with
Whirlpool, but it didn’t really inspire customers to see what they would look like in their house – instantly by putting the Symphony kitchens in and we’re now selling built-in. “One thing that surprised us is that having a built-in offering has actually improved our
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www.ierdaily.co.uk October/November 2022
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