RETAILER FOCUS
A first for Selbrae House
Donny Carstairs, managing director at Selbrae House, spoke to Housewares Magazine about the opening of its first ever retail store.
I
ndependent Scottish family business, Selbrae House was started by Donny Carstairs as The Just Slate Company in 2006, initially with a small range of handcrafted slate place mats and coasters. Since then, the business has expanded and now carries an additional
three brands – Scottish Made, Naturally Med and The Linen Table. Although each offering is unique, all four brands work in harmony and provide a wide range of handcrafted homeware products. “Coming from a farming background I’ve always been fairly grounded with a good work ethic and having to be creative to survive and thrive. With an accountancy degree from university, I joined my mother’s dried flower business which is where my love for the retail industry started. Selbrae House is now in its 17th year and I’m proud to say that it’s been a journey of a lifetime. It’s been a privilege to manage such a dynamic and successful brand. The relationships I’ve developed through colleagues, customers and trade shows will stay with me forever,” says Carstairs. Following its expansion, Selbrae House has now opened its first ever retail store.
The right location Situated in the heart of St Andrews, Carstairs highlights how location was a key factor in the decision process when opening the permanent retail space. “We’ve always wanted to have our own shop as another sales channel and being in our hometown of St Andrews just felt right. Given most of our products are made right here in Fife it just made sense to open our first retail store here! St Andrews also has a unique mix of tourists, students and locals which should make the shop busy more or less all year round.” “We’re predominately B2B and we see our Selbrae House store as being an ideal base to acquire invaluable feedback from our customers, which we will take forth when developing products to create the best possible collections for our trade customers. The shop being right on our doorstep also provides ample opportunities to view our products as an entire collection on a shop floor, allowing us the scope to better explore merchandising and branding possibilities which will be communicated on a trade level to ensure brand interaction is experienced to its full potential.”
14 | June/July 2023
True to the brand Selbrae House is widely recognised for its use of natural materials and the business has ensured its retail space reflects this, as Carstairs says “Within the Selbrae House store you can expect to see a miscellany of products which have been hand-crafted from natural materials; think slate tableware, oak serving paddles, olivewood kitchen utensils and traditionally woven linen aprons, all of which are the perfect blend for putting the finishing touches to any home or finding the perfect gift for a loved one.” “We’ve made the decision to solely sell our own range of products - we think we’ve now got a wide enough range to make it work! There’s also been a great demand for St Andrews specific designs. We’re lucky enough to have our own personalisation facilities and in-house designer, who is actually my little sister, meaning we can easily make this happen. Our shop furnishings have been sourced from a salvage yard - the beautiful rawness of the natural materials compliments our brand fantastically. For instance, we purchased a well-used worker’s bench to use as one of our display tables, which perfectly captures the handcrafted element of our products,” he adds.
Continued growth The opening of the retail space has allowed Selbrae House to evolve and continue its growth, says Carstairs. “The local community have been so supportive and shown great interest in our shop! I think it’s been quite refreshing for them to see a family from St Andrews open their own store and support the local shopping scene. We see the shop as part of the evolution of our brand – to showcase how we want our products to look and feel. We’ve seen an amazing reaction to our products all over the world, therefore we look to focus on growing our export market, we can now count 32 countries as having made sales to. People associate Scotland with quality products whether that’s food, textiles or whisky – we hope to be very much part of that stable.”
Image credit: Mhairi Edwards and DC Thomson
housewareslive.net
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