D.A.D: ALISON TAYLOR THE ERT INTERVIEW


August 2023 ertonline.co.uk


various stores gives the best indication of how the market is faring and what’s selling well.


Q: Do you have any plans to move the company forward in your time as MD? AT: I don’t have any ground-breaking plans if I’m honest! It’s a very successful business and all I ever wanted to do was build on what the Gillman’s have done before. So there are no big changes afoot; the industry is in quite a fragile state at the moment so we will continue to stick to what we’re good at for the next few months. Then next year when the market shows solid signs of recovery we might take a different view on that.


16 D.A.D won Best Industry Distributor at the ERT Awards last year


Q: D.A.D has won many industry awards in the past, including several ERT Awards accolades in recent years. So what is it that you think makes D.A.D stand out? AT: It is a long-standing, trusted brand and people know us. We’ve got a lot of loyal customers and they know that


they can


place an order for almost anything and get it delivered quickly with our next-day dispatch service. We hold a lot of stock of a huge range of product, and in large quantities too. I’m really proud of our own brand that we


offer too; they’re still as popular as ever and they offer retailers a really competitive product range in this market.


Not only that, but our logistics operation


is second-to-none. We get a lot of praise about that. The warehousing and logistics teams do a fantastic job, as do all the teams here – customer-facing and back office. Our


sales team is absolutely crucial to service our customers, bring in new business and to make sure that we’ve got the right products that our customers want at the price points that they want, and the sales team have a strong support network behind them.


During the pandemic the team was


predominantly home-based, but over the past year we’ve really focused on getting back out in front of our customers. People buy from people, and they buy from the people that are in front of them. And for us going in and out of


Q: So you’re confident that there could be positivity ahead? AT: We would expect to see some seasonal upturn between now and Christmas, obviously with Black Friday boosting sales during that time. The first quarter of this year was difficult as there was not a lot of spending, and then the bank holidays in April and May were a real challenge for Retailers. I think it will be a good indicator over the next three months where the market is going and whether we’re going to see a strong recovery in 2024. I mentioned earlier seeing green shoots coming through; I don’t expect to see sales at last year’s levels, but I’m really hopeful that we will definitely see an upturn from the first six months of the year.


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