MERCHANT FOCUS: BEERS
reassuring. In hindsight, there have been some good things to come out of the pandemic. It has made us look at our website and bring that up to speed, we’ve improved our internal use of technology with Teams meetings which we’d never really done before, and we’ve enhanced our sales techniques.”
roofing. Conboy says: “We’ll be trialling the roofing ranges at this site before we then think about adding them to the other sites. There’s a number of roofing merchants in this area so it’s the perfect time to do it. Having the space here means we have the capacity to stock products from suppliers such as Marley, with whom we’ve been interested in working for years, but haven’t had the capacity.”
The customer profile is also similar to the other branches -small to medium-sized building companies, though Conboy says there has also been a few more retail customers than exceed, mainly due to the proximity of the large B&Q. The Rathbone Road site is a former Mercedes garage, so it required a lot of building work. Overseen by Keogh, this included knocking through the eight internal offices to create the sales office, trade counter and meeting room areas. There were also inspection pits in the area now covered by the warehouse which needed filling-in. “While it was a lot of work, we’ve got a big shop area here now, a few offices with a small meeting room, warehouses outside and extended yard space which is unusual being so close to a city centre,” Conboy explains, adding that, with the extra space comes the capacity to add more heavyside and timber products.
The branch is 2.2 acres, and opened with 10
staff, a couple of drivers, a few sales staff and a manager, Kevin Duffy, who transferred from the Beers Warrington branch, and assistant manager Andy McKeown, though the plan is to up this as the branch develops. “We want to promote from within to keep that Beers continuity and they can feed their experience down to new or existing staff.”
The branch manager and assistant manager are both internal transfers from the Warrington branch, and Conboy says that suppliers have been very supportive with getting the initial stock and merchandise in. FORTIS, the buying group, whose Timber category Conboy heads up, has also proved to be a major help with existing and new deals. “We’ve had so much extra support from FORTIS, particularly on the roofing side,” he says. “There are a lot of larger merchants than us within the community, so being able to tap into that source of knowledge has been helpful for me as an individual and for Beers as a business.”
He adds that the FORTIS community was especially helpful during the early days of the Covid pandemic in 2020, when no-one was really sure whether to open for business or not. “During the pandemic specifically, we were only closed for a total of around five days. Having a buying group to talk to, and ask if other businesses were doing the same was very
May 2023
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net
Rathbone Road is Beers’ third branch in Liverpool; between the three there are 10 vehicles meaning the company can offer same-day or next-day service. Conboy says: “If one of the depots is full for deliveries, we can push them to the other branches. The three managers at the separate branches get on very well with each other, they do talk and help each other out as and when is needed. If a builder is working in one part of Liverpool, he’ll be no more than 15 minutes away from one of our branches. Also, if they have an account with us, that will cover them for our plumbing and heating branches as well as the Beers branches.”
Although it’s early days for the branch, Conboy says the ambition is for it to grow so that its turnover matches its size. There’s further development to come, as well, with an area to the right of the entrance due to be refurbished into a showroom. “We haven’t really put a figure on it as such, but we’d like Rathbone Road to achieve a similar sort of turnover figure to that of our head office branch within the next two years. It definitely has the potential to be a really profitable branch.”
He says that, although margins are getting tighter, as they are everywhere, there is a lot of building business happening in and around Liverpool at the moment. “Over the last couple of years we’ve been in a good position, but now we’re having to work a bit harder. There is work going on, we’ve got the new Everton stadium right across the road which we’re supplying to, there’s a couple of new build sites which we’re hoping to supply to as well as the general day-to-day customers. Having the extra capacity, visibility and delivery capability from Rathbone Road will mean we can really make the most of the opportunities.” BMJ
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