talkingshop Buyer’s eye
Sarah Woodreflects on her 20-year housewares career and shares some home truths about the realities of independent retailing
On trading It’s very difficult currently to be one family, in one town, in one shop, and make money. It’s not an easy task. You can do it - okay, I don’t drive an Aston Martin - but you have to be quite brave, I think. Or bonkers.
On having fun As an independent store, you’ve got to be a fun place for people to come. And if you can’t have fun while working, you might as well stay home. My [four full-time] staff and I have often
ended up in tears of laughter behind the counter. You end up just not being able to speak some days because you’re laughing so much - and you’ve got a customer in the same state quite often. And I love working here at Christmas. It’s like working in a busy pub on a Saturday night.
“As an independent
store, you’ve got to be a fun place for people to come. And if you can’t have fun
while working, you might as well stay home”
On being a ‘proper’ retailer I still don’t think I’m a proper retailer. I still think I’m playing at it. It was a bit like that when I was pregnant. I was expecting someone to say: ‘Sorry. Dreadful mistake. You’re not allowed one. You’re on Santa’s naughty list!’ You see all these [staff] from posh shops in
their suits with their iPads who take it all terribly seriously and I feel like I’m still an amateur - or getting lucky a lot. I still don’t feel like I’m a grown up. Maybe that’s why it’s still okay. I don’t take myself too seriously either.
On playing it safe I came into the shop a couple of years ago and thought, ‘you know, there’s not one thing in
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here that I want to nick’. So if I feel like that… then, well, poor customers! I’ve got to want to take home half the stuff in this place. I think that’s the difficulty
with a lot of cookshops at the moment. They’re playing safe. When times are hard, you have to change your buying pattern. You’ve got to be a bit ballsy. Yes, we all sell the ‘must
haves’ like T&G Woodware and Le Creuset. But it doesn’t stop you having some really weird or expensive or unusual items that you get excited about - and in turn, your customers get excited about. For instance, we recently
starting stocking the White Line range of Eva Solo saucepans. It’s quite a brave product to put in because it’s not a fiver. But you have to always have an air of adventure about you, because we all have customers who come in once a fortnight and they’re looking for something different.
On colour trends I think this shop has always been out of the ordinary. Under [late uncle] Trevor, it was always purist: if it wasn’t black, white or steel, it wasn’t allowed in. Colour has become part of the fashion in
cookware over the past 20 years but it’s knowing when to change the colours, and when colour is for colour’s sake. How do you know? I haven’t got a clue. I’m not trained (I’d love to go on a buying course) but I’ve got enough experience.
On best sellers Swift Supreme cookware from Dexam is our entry-level all-time best selling range. Textiles from ICTC and The Tottering By Gently range by Samuel Lamont (especially the Dog Rules tea towel) always do well, plus Microplane graters and the whole Good Grips range. Scanpan and Henckels are big brands for us too.
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HousewaresLive.net
Gin is still a big story - we’ve sold hundreds
of pairs of gin glasses from Schott Zwiesel - and fermenting kits are popular: everyone’s making kimchi. Going up in demand right now are hydration bottles from Clarity Brands.
On the 80:20 rule I said to a customer the other day: ‘You don’t need 80% of what we’ve got in here. You only need about 20%. But all the rest just makes some jobs more enjoyable and easier to do.’ For instance, you don’t need a mandoline
but it just makes the job a damn sight easier, faster and more efficient. And when you get a good gadget, that does exactly what it says on the packet, it’s so rewarding. The must-have 20%? A frying pan, saucepan,
knife, potato peeler, potato masher, cheese grater… things like that. Literally what you send your kids off to uni with. But when it comes to knives, you ideally
need a cook’s knife, a slicing knife and a paring knife. You don’t need a boning and filleting knife but these are products you can add on as you develop as a cook. But just to cook a Sunday roast, you don’t need a lot of equipment
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twitter.com/Housewaresnews March/April 2018
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