January 2023 ertonline.co.uk


The personal service Talking about how the business has fared recently, Ms Broad says trade has been busy of late, due in part to its close proximity to a number of competitors – including some large multinational companies. “We often have customers saying they enjoy the personal service they benefit from in our stores,” she says. “This is why they return time and again.” Reflecting on the peak season in the run up to Christmas, she adds that it was quite busy – especially for ovens and cookers. “If anyone’s oven is on the blink, they don’t want it to fail on Christmas Day! We can also get a lot of repair jobs around that time – and we have two engineers and a delivery team to make sure we can always reach our customers.” Looking ahead into 2023, Power Point is looking at taking on more staff across the board: “We need people in hybrid roles, who can flip between doing deliveries and being in the shop, depending on what the business requires at the time.” Sterling Broad (Natalie’s Dad) trains staff on the


engineering and installation side, tapping in to his many years as an engineer himself, and new shop floor staff are also trained internally: “Our existing staff are


extremely knowledgeable – we have people who have been in the company for around 20 years,” says Ms Broad. “What they don’t know about appliances isn’t worth knowing.


“Our existing staff relate important information on new appliances to any new staff and we have physical machines in-store that we can demonstrate, which is a crucial sales tool.” On being a Euronics agent, Ms Broad says there are lots of benefits: “Even though we’re a family-run independent, we are very close with the other stores that are in the area – we all talk regularly and help each other out when we need to. “We have [Euronics] meetings every other month and these are such valuable updates because we also then know what’s happening in the market and what trends we might see coming up.”


Energy efficient appliances


Power Point Stores has also got behind recent Euronics initiatives around sustainability and women’s football, and more and more of the business’s customers are interested in learning about energy efficient appliances, Ms Broad reports.


“People are steering towards things like air fryers – although it’s tricky to get hold of the larger ones in the UK at the moment – and they also want energy advice on washing machines and dishwashers,” she adds. “We let them know which is the most efficient way to use them, and we also have heat-pump tumble dryers – we’ve been stocking a lot of those for a while because of their eco-friendly benefits.” To promote its business in the local area, Power Point uses various social media platforms – an area that it’s currently growing – and it also carries out leaflet drops, which it finds work really well. Ms Broad says that despite the usual ups and downs of the retail sector in recent years, she is positive about the future: “The country is in difficult times, but we have the benefit of being an essential store; whether someone needs a new washing machine, or needs to get one repaired urgently, they can pay us a visit and benefit from our in-store advice as well as our servicing and repair options.”


She adds: “During lockdown we had to close our


doors but we were still operating behind the scenes and doing doorstep deliveries of essential items. The ‘shop local’ initiative definitely helped us and we hope this will continue into the future.”


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