MERCHANT FOCUS: KENT BLAXILL Change
“Because Kent Blaxill started out in the more decorative side of merchanting, the building materials side is the smaller side of the business. It went hand-in-hand with our landscaping department, Global Stone but we sold that just before Christmas. There was a strong focus on landscaping in 90s thanks to popular TV but in recent years there has been a refocus on interiors and design.”
Blaxill says it’s important for merchants to remember that everything is constantly evolving, with trends in the market influenced by popular customer choices. He says the rise in the DIY market and interior design awareness has meant they’ve had to adapt to non-professional customers too, hence the different areas and environments created for paint in each branch. Showrooms are another key component in a Kent Blaxill branch. Featuring beautiful kitchens and bathroom set-pieces, these now also include a high-end designer wallpaper counter. All Kent Blaxill sites have a clear division between the trade area and the more glossy shop and showroom. “Much like with the painting and decorating areas, we are reorganising our sites with a remodel of building materials areas, perhaps with a drive-through possibility for tradesmen.” Despite all of these changes, Blaxill says that KB will only ever go up to 30 branches as their maximum target in the UK to maintain their long-held family culture within each branch.
Tug-of-war
“We are seeing more and more niche brands challenging bigger brands in the decorating sector, especially in paints. In fact, these are showing a new rise in smaller suppliers who can offer a better price for competitive quality. Quality is the most important aspect to us so we welcome a number of niche brands as well as the bigger favourites.” Blaxill mentions that while these niche brands offer merchants a wider selection of products to sell, they are forcing the bigger brands to rethink their strategies, which will in-turn affect their relationships with merchants.
Another impact on sales, Blaxill says is the way social media is affecting price. “People can buy products on the internet and take picture to put up on social media channels between tradesmen which have a huge impact on sales. This has meant that we have to keep an eye on social media to keep our prices realistic and competitive with online retailers. While we don’t officially see ourselves as retailers, we are still under the same pressure that highstreet stores have to prove to our customers that we provide the quality they want for competitive prices both in-store and online.
We are still under the same pressure that highstreet stores have to prove that we provide quality for competitive prices both in-store and online.
“ ”
that Kent Blaxill has found the women in the decorating side of the business invaluable to creating their new in-branch interior design areas. “The majority of the members of our painting and decorating teams are women, they have the creativity that interior design requires. We also have a number of female managers and members of the team working on creating the Kent Blaxill of the future. Women come the hard way into management in our industry, which
June 2019
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net
“One of the best ways we can do this is by offering an excellent in-store experience with our trained staff and newly remodelled branches.” Blaxill says that this doesn’t mean they won’t also be focussing on their online sales platform. “Our website is a modern shop window- we are working on improving our current website, understanding we need to find a balance between the personal and the informative. Price transparency is also
becoming a big challenge across bigger businesses and will shape our business model in the future” he explains. “We are even looking into ideas of moving into a more creative side of the business with a decorative-based website. The biggest challenges are price transparency and growing internet businesses that can focus 100% of their energy on their online presence.” While Kent Blaxill is weighted towards more male workers than female, Blaxill explains
can mean that they make better members of the team because they’ve had to fight for their position. While men and women can think quite differently, they increase a healthy amount of competition within a business that can spark some brilliant ideas and mean that a company grows more effectively in a modern market.” “There are some really good women who have had to dip out of work to deal with family etc, who lose their confidence although they are clearly capable in their role. I’ve always thought this is a great shame because they are often better at their job than most of their colleagues and they deserve to accept the praise they’re due for being able to have a family and come back into work.”
Training
With recent focus on staff turnover, following cultural changes of business, new targets and new methods, Blaxill says that the Kent Blaxill Training scheme focuses on training the managers of the future. “Training is on various levels, including higher managerial because the courses focus on subjects that we feel everyone in the business needs to know. We used to hire externally into managerial roles but we would find that those people might find it a lot harder to come to grips with our culture and the type of strategies we prefer to use.
“Now, 18 members of staff have been promoted through in-company training and since starting the internal training and promoting people up within the business, we have found that this is a much more effective system and staff have been a lot happier.” Blaxill says that the motto for their training has always been “Recruit means retain”. BMJ
21
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 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
