Monday February 5 2018 THE NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM, BIRMINGHAM
modern shopping environment, linked with its superb user-friendly website. My second choice has to be Dunelm, who
strives to raise the bar with good range planning and good service; certainly a group worth watching.
“The most exciting
area has to be small electricals. It never lacks innovation”
Name one change you would make to the housewares industry. All suppliers must identify who their main target customers are in the UK, and then ensure that the correct ranges are targeted to the right stores. These stores can then be given total support
to promote and sell those ranges, with the confidence of superb service and protection from all of the discounters. In other words: offer different choices to department stores, discount stores and internet traders. The UK is too small to sell the same products to us all.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in the housewares industry? Housewares is a vibrant, fashionable and growing product sector and there are still opportunities for new solus independent cookshops. The key here is Location, Location, Location.
Pick the right area, check out local competition and, as soon as possible, join AIS or the CHA [Cookshop & Housewares Association: a specialist division of bira]. Their help is invaluable. If you’re intending to start out as a supplier,
first of all you need new, different and exciting products, at the right price, linked to good serviceability from day one. It’s no good coming out with a copy of a product which already exists.
What will you miss? Quite simply, the people I worked with at AIS and many of our long term suppliers. At AIS, we’re often quoted as being ‘the
biggest buyers of nothing’. We work with our key branded suppliers, using all our AIS resources, to persuade our buyers to support our new initiatives. We cannot force them to get involved but
luckily, due to long-standing relationships, most ideas are well supported by members and suppliers alike. I will miss them all.
comment
What won’t you miss? One answer: the M42 from Worcestershire up to Solihull!
What’s next? Donald Trump is at least a year older than me and has just started one of the biggest jobs on the planet. Somehow I don’t think politics would be my forte – so Theresa May is quite safe! However, I believe I still have some more contributions to make in housewares, especially on new products and concepts. So, after a nice break, I shall be doing some
specialist housewares consultancy to see where that leads. I’m certainly not looking for 24/7 work and I know that would not suit my long-suffering wife! I also have some charity work in mind. I really do fancy driving one of those huge coffee machines in our local hospital's coffee points. So who knows where I will end up? But I
certainly hope to meet with the many friends I’ve made over many years in this fabulous housewares trade.
• David’s contact details for specialist housewares consultancy services are: email:
davidgparkes@live.co.uk mobile: 07066014231
May 2017
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HousewaresLive.net
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