MERCHANT FOCUS: DUFTONS
BRANCHING OUT W
e think of ourselves as Yorkshire’s best-kept merchanting secret, but we’re ready to shout about
ourselves a bit more.” So says Jonathan Eyre, commercial director at Duftons, the Leeds- based plumbing and heating merchant, that’s just embarking on an expansion and growth plan.
Duftons was set up in 1986 by two friends, Paul Dufton and Barry Fowler, and it’s their two sons, Nigel Fowler and Steve Dufton, who, as joint owners, have been running the plumbers’ merchant in tandem for the last 25 years. Both are now at the stage where they are looking to reduce the amount of time spent in the business on a daily basis. Dufton’s son Daniel is sales director, and Fowler, as managing director, is focussing on a more strategic view rather than the day-to- day running of the business. Eyre says: “The reason I came along is that those two wanted to take more of a back seat, and were looking for someone who was a bit older - Daniel is only 37 - and had a bit more experience. Not necessarily in merchanting, because around the Duftons offices there is plenty of merchanting sector expertise, but experience in the wider industry, someone who could see the wider picture.”
Eyre first worked in merchanting in 1988 until 1992, so although he’s been out of merchanting 32 years, he has that bigger picture view, having worked at distributor BCG, and most recently, Polypipe Building Supplies.
New areas
For the first time in its history, the company has moved out of its Yorkshire heartland, opening in Durham in September and Stockton-on-Tees by the end of the year. “We have taken a couple of new people on, including Gavin Nesbit, who used to run 23 Plumbase branches in the north east,” Eyre says. “He understands that north east market, and is ideally placed to spearhead our growth there. We have taken a view that the north east is a nice fit with Yorkshire. It was him becoming available that allowed us to push on with our plans. We may well end up
18
Fiona Russell Horne meets a family-owned plumbers’ merchant that’s expanding beyond its traditional regional boundaries.
doing something similar with another area of expansion, but it would depend on how things pan out, if the right person were to become available. For the time being, our focus is going to be in the north east; we can see that there is a lot of scope for an independent business like us to do well.”
Duftons’ branches are in Leeds, which is the head office, Beeston, Castleford, Halifax, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Bingley, Bradford, Thirsk and Barnsley. There’s also Gildersome, on the outskirts of Leeds, which houses the new initiative, Dufton’s Renewable Energy. Designed to be a one-stop-shop for the growing renewables sector, including products like heat pumps, solar panels and batteries, it will be run as a separate entity under the Dufton’s umbrella. There’s a lot
of storage capacity at that branch, making it ideal, Eyre says, for the renewables market, in particular heat pumps. “These things are so big that if you put them into stock in a normal branch, they can overpower everything else. You need to have the space to serve your jobbing plumber customers, as they form the bread-and-butter of your business. We took the view that all the contract jobs will be serviced from Gildersome, which is close to the M62, so in an ideal spot for access to the market.”
He explains that very few heat pumps are currently bought by the end-users or their local plumber, instead being mostly purchased via the government schemes, and so tend to be part of bigger contract jobs. “We do a lot of contract business outside Yorkshire,
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net November 2024
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