Showroom Focus
BMJ
BUILDERS MERCHANTS JOURNAL
Taking bathroom sales above and beyond
Two NBG Partners are using their bathroom showrooms to target the retail sector, with more upmarket products and a focus on luxurious sales, without losing sight of their merchanting roots.
ou might think there wouldn’t be much passing trade for a bathroom showroom on the busy A30 in Staines, just 1 mile from junction 13 of the M25, but Cliff Payne has news for you. The managing director of Ashford Heating Supplies and its Bathe & Beyond bathroom showroom business, points out that, while there isn’t much walk-in passing trade, the showroom does get customers in who spotted it while they were driving past or sitting in traffic at the busy A308 roundabout. “We’re lucky that we are very visible
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from the road,” he says. “Especially at night, because the sign is illuminated and the fact that we have a big car park that’s easy to access and easy to see also helps,” he says.
Bathe and Beyond is part of Ashford Heating Supplies and started life out as a small, dedicated bathroom showroom attached to the trade counter area. However, as the business grew, so did the aspirations of its customers. Payne says: “We found we were being asked more
and more often for more and more of the upmarket bathroom brands. These brands have certain standards that you have to adhere to if you are to be one of their stockists, such as having a separate showroom away from the trade counter.” So, in 2013, the business invested in
the creation of the Bathe and Beyond bathroom showroom, in addition to a fresh new trade counter area and the large customer car park. The showroom subsequently won the KBB Bathroom Showroom of The Year 2015 and was a finalist in the BKU Awards, winning the award in 2015. There are over 60 different bathroom sets, three working shower displays and a working steam room display. Showroom manager Michael Gooding says that the showroom caters for the walk-in retail customers, but also does big business with designers and installers. “We tell them that they can bring their own customers in here and we will help them with the designing of the bathrooms and take all the hassle of that away from them.
Winning the Bathroom Retailer of the Year category really is a proud achievement for Bathe & Beyond.” Cliff Payne,
“ “When we design the layout of the
showroom, we try to take account of the fact that most people have quite small bathrooms so we try to show what can be achieved in a small space. “We cover a range of budgets, from good value entry-level right up to the top-of-the-line top-end products. We only have products that we know are good, that we are happy to sell and brands that we know there either won’t be any problems with or, if there are, that they will be sorted out quickly and easily. It’s one of the reasons people keep using us.”
TEC Supplies scoops top award
12
Going for Growth January 2018 BMJ
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