RETAILING


Despite having a large number of competitors in the area, Paul remains upbeat and doesn’t believe customer’s


loyalty to


Barnitts will dwindle. “We’ve got every competition, we’ve got designer outlets, a John Lewis on the outskirts, Marks and Spencers, Morrisons, Waitrose, B&M - we’ve got everybody! “We’ve been here a long time, and we have grown and developed and sold things people are looking for on a day-to-day basis. We offer good customer service and have friendly staff, a vast array of products and we’re as competitive as we can be. We’ve established a good reputation over the years - but we aren’t immune to what’s going on out there in the world, it’s a very much changing retail environment at the moment.”


Although many people would likely seem daunted by the prospect of having extensive competition in the area it trades from, Paul says more stores in the city centre will drive footfall, ultimately benefiting the business. “My biggest thing is I prefer competition on my doorstep than out of town, you know at the end of the day if the likes of John Lewis came into the city centre I’d look at it as a positive not a negative,” he says. “You can compete, you can change your stock ranges but it’s the footfall that people bring, so I don’t shy away from competition.” Barnitts has a number of


gone changes since we can do there as well,” he says.


Internet minefield The opportunities across online retailing is growing, as more focus on the internet takes hold, Barnitts website has a professional feel, but Paul says the business will continue to look at improving and refining its online service.


He says: “The web is getting


harder and harder. More and more people are joining the internet and if you want to be up there you have to pay the big boys. We’re working with the internet, we’re improving our website and it will be much more sophisticated. It’s good now - but it will be better. There will be more stock information and it will make it more customer-friendly so their questions are answered before they have to ask staff. “We’re


looking at vanity really, if we’re


Google, it has got to work. It’s more monitored. Our


turnover may be


coming down on the internet but we’re not chasing the pounds. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an internet retailer or bricks and mortar, there’s still cost involved online and people don’t understand that - you can’t just stick it up there nowadays, it all costs money.”


through its


inception, and notably its extensive range and the growth in retail capacity. “We have about 45,000sq ft of


retail space and range from furniture to lighting, homeware, tools, ironmongery/hardware, domestic cleaning and products, bathroom, cookshop area. That has developed over the last 30 years, because we bought premises and expanded over the last 25 years.”


The business owns a warehouse just a mile out of the city centre, which Paul managed to secure retail status for, meaning they are able to stock and distribute larger items more efficiently. “We have an area of York that’s become quite industrial really, so our warehouse sits between Waitrose and Morrisons and there will be a Lidl there soon. And I applied for retail status on our warehouse as well as storage facilities and I’ve now got past 8,000sqft of retail space with car parking which is just less than a mile away from the city centre. So we’re in the process of readjusting that and doing some investing in there with click and collect, large furniture and lighting and various other bits and bobs


www.diyweek.net


Social media plays a vital role in many businesses, but Paul jokingly tells DIY Week he’s a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to the more technological side of things. “I keep myself well away from it, it only seems to cause trouble!” he laughs. All joking aside, he says: “We know we need to use it, and in the New Year there’s a member of staff who wants to get more involved with that.” “Facebook isn’t as easy to get


through if you want to advertise and the goalpost is moving all the time for all businesses - they reel you in, give it to you free for a while and then you’re hooked. I think it’s an area that we need to look at. I’m sure it works in some ways but I don’t think you can run your business on social media and


“[Trading] has been very disruptive over the last 18 months for business, it hasn’t been easy, but change isn’t always a bad thing, it doesn’t have to mean the worst case scenario.”


sanity over paying


rely on that because if you put all of your eggs in one basket, it will change again. It’s always changing.”


Christmas cheer The winter season is an important time for retailers, and Barnitts stocks up on the decorations every year. However lack of innovation in the lighting department has seen business in that sector decline, Paul says. “We’ve had quite a wet beginning to the Christmas season - trading’s mixed shall we say. We have some good days and also some bad days, depending on the weather,” he chuckles “We always have a big Christmas decorations department and we advertise a little bit this time of year and do a bit of radio. “They’re making the technology too good [in the lighting sector], it used to be a lot better when people’s lights broke and they had to get replacements year after year. We need people to want to buy some more, so the repeat business is shrinking year on year and we’ve been buying less and less. But there’s been no innovation in that sector, so more and more people are putting their lights up but when they’ve got them they’re not breaking you see, so the market doesn’t grow really.


For the last couple of years there hasn’t been much innovation out there.”


Although Christmas window displays are often an excellent selling approach for retailers looking to entice customers into the store, Paul says the money is in the customer service. “We never really go to town with a fancy window display, we’re very much a practical store and that’s our selling point. If we do fancy windows we’re not selling products. Keep it simple. I don’t think we’ll bring in more money by spending thousands of pounds doing a super display - it might do something it might not, but we’ve always kept it very minimalistic.”


Scaling down Paul tells DIY Week that the future for Barnitts will mean making the most of its space and selling the expansive space that was purchased over 20 years ago. “We’re going to be smaller. I’ve been working on a deal, well I’ve just signed on the dotted line actually and it’s all done and dusted, but we’re selling what we bought 25 years ago, and that’s being redeveloped and we’re releasing that equity to reinvest. We’re actually too large for modern retailing and the cost in the


14 DECEMBER 2018 DIY WEEK 21


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