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Retail panel Panellists (pictured left to right): Matt Renaut, MD, Dacombes of Wimborne Sean Hannam, Editor, Retra Alert Luke Gammon, Director, Wades Matthew Todd, Partner, Herbert Todd
Q: How sustainable is your business and how do you think you could do more? Matt Renaut: At the moment we’re doing okay. We recycle as much as we can, we are hoping to invest in a fleet of electric vans soon, and in the new year we’re having solar panels fitted to our building. We got a grant from local government towards the fitting of the panels. So hopefully we’re going to be completely sustainable so we generate all the power we need and hopefully a little bit more for the new vans. Luke Gammon: We’ve just had a big redevelopment in our store so every light bulb is now LED, where we used to have the big halogen light strips, which cost a fortune to run. Also, we don’t travel miles away from our store so electric vans would be perfect for us, but it’s just the cost implications and the lack of infrastructure around our building. Matthew Todd: We moved to a new out-of- town building about six years ago which meant that we had to put solar panels on the roof. Our heating system is so costly to run but
hopefully government grants will allow us to explore heat pump technology instead.
Q: The issue of manufacturers selling direct to consumers is still ongoing. How do you compete with that? LG: We can’t. It’s not nice. They are manufacturers and they should probably stick to manufacturing, we’re the retailers we’ll stick to retailing. I understand that it’s really easy to get in front of the consumer now, but whatever they’re doing we should be allowed to do; if they’re offering a 20 per cent snap deal just tell us and we’ll do it too. If it’s a level playing field we wouldn’t care as much. MT: I absolutely totally agree. Of course every manufacturer is going to want to have the best presence they can online – it’s where customers will go to do their research. At the same time they’re looking for a local expert and that is what I offer. We can’t have brand websites advertising special prices and offers that I’m not even told about, because it completely pulls the rug out from underneath me. MR: At this conference a few years ago we discussed how we could combat manufacturers selling direct – we’ll get our own brand. Being part of Euronics we have the Blomberg brand which works really well for us; it’s a large part of my offering and it keeps me relevant to the value customer these days.
Q: Should independent retailers be doing more on social media? Should you use influencers and other content to encourage engagement? LG: Yes! Everyone’s on social media so you’ve got to be on there. I feel that if you’re not you’re not going to be relevant to the younger demographic.
I’m on every social channel, especially TikTok
and YouTube, and we do really well from it. I even sell on TikTok. Video content is so worth doing as it stays online forever, so if you’ve still got stock of certain items and people can still click through, it’s going to sell. Although content shouldn’t feel like a sales pitch; if I’m filming an installation at a customer’s house people get the idea of what we do and what we sell anyway. Or I’ll explain how to use certain products. If I just stand there and say “buy this air fryer, it’s great” that would be boring; if I show people the meals I’ve made with the air fryer it’ll open up discussions about the features and benefits. And that’s great – the more comments and engagement helps the videos reach further. And we’ve just reached 2,000 followers
on YouTube, which means we can start monetising content and we’ll get paid for the ads when people watch our videos. So my mission now is to grow that as much as I can so I get as much ad revenue as possible.
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