February 2022
ertonline.co.uk
Managing Director, Laurence Armstrong
“Hi-Fi dealers have evolved a lot in recent years and they’re doing a really good job”
Q&A
Q: So how would you summarise the last 25 years for Henley? Nick Fuller: The best thing is going from our little cupboard of Ortofon UK to a multi-million-pound distribution company, and seeing the business grow so much over the years. I love working in this industry where everyone is genuinely so enthusiastic about Hi-Fi. We have forged really great relationships with our dealers and our brands and we now consider them friends. Simon Powell: The quality of products that we sell is also the best it has ever been and we have some really well respected brands, so being able to pass these on to the retailers and then to the end consumer is our key ambition.
Q: Do you have any plans for your 25th year? SP: This year we will roll out a whole new business system and website which will massively benefit our internal teams but also our dealer network. As stores bring in more automated systems we
realised that we need to give dealers access to more and more information, so this will be an integrated product management system where they can check product pricing and availability and stay on top of their service jobs. A lot of dealers work over the weekend, for example, so it’s just additional support to better assist them day-to-day. NF: It’s essentially a streamlining operation. Because of the way the company has grown, we started out with a small team and it’s very people- focused. We don’t intend to stop picking up the phone to our dealers and we won’t downsize our customer services, but retail is not just nine-to-five anymore and all the information that normally comes from our teams can be accessed at any time from one central place.
Nick Fuller on the left, with Simon Powell We have been working towards this in recent
years, and perhaps if it wasn’t for COVID, it would have been ready. It’s just a case of final touches and going live.
Q: Looking back at more recent times, how have things been for you during the pandemic? SP: I think that if we hadn’t have had COVID and the growth of online we would be having different discussions now; in the last two years we have seen growth on a whole new level. During the first lockdown we initially struggled to sell high- end but that shift in behaviour meant that net online spend went up and we’d never really been that strong online before.
Having said that, when retail stores reopened
it was a real joy for us. I’m pleased to say that we haven’t lost a single retailer to COVID; they have all adjusted really well. We deal with the full spectrum, from Richer Sounds to Audio Destination down in Devon – and hats off to them for running their businesses so well through these times. I think Hi-Fi dealers have evolved a lot in recent
years and they’re doing a really good job, because with electronics in general there’s an increasing consumer expectation of all of the features but none of the cost. So retail prices have been driven down and eventually product quality can drop down too. And that’s not what Henley is about. NF: We always believe in selling up and we can demonstrate the difference between a £2,000 system and even a £20,000 system where the quality comes across instantly. Once the customer has heard some Klipsch bookshelf speakers the dealer can apply that same sound experience to a bigger and better product.
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