COOPER & ELMS Retailer Profile
16
Cooper & Elms Director at the King’s Lynn store
Cooper & Elms begins its next chapter ‘this one just felt right’
Following the acquisition of another long-established electrical retailer, Cooper & Elms is beginning a new chapter in its 42-year history. ERT’s Will McGill travelled to King’s Lynn to meet Director Ian Cooper and talk expansion, changing consumer habits and why there is still plenty of life in the independent electrical retail sector.
C
ooper & Elms has seen a lot change since it first opened its doors in King’s Lynn in 1984. Established by Ian Cooper’s father on 1 September that year,
the business began life as a Tandy dealer, selling smaller electronics and components before developing its brown goods offering. Today, the shop looks rather different. Around
80 per cent of the showroom is now given over to white goods, a shift Mr Cooper traces back to the decision to join Euronics in 2009.
“Prior to that, we were purely brown goods,” he tells me. “We thought we had to take that leap and join the buying group, which obviously opened up white goods to us. Now, as you can probably see looking around the store, about 80 per cent of it is white goods.” It was a difficult period personally for Mr Cooper, with his father sadly passing away in the same year and therefore not getting to see the transformation that followed. His mother, who was also involved in Cooper & Elms, has since passed away too.
Mr Cooper has now been running the business for around 16 years alongside his wife, Emma, and Cooper & Elms celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2024. Two years on, it is entering another important chapter.
Branching out
On 1 June, Cooper & Elms began trading from a second location in Heacham, around 12 miles from its original King’s Lynn shop, following the acquisition of the premises and stock of A.E. Wallis.
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