Retailing going forward

batman75

Work with my sisters in a family business selling homewares. We have three stores all in town centre locations. Have a unit purchased to open in another town centre location which is one of the stronger town centres in Ireland. After a slow start our website is starting to take off sales wise.

The homewares market is starting to get very crowded with the likes of The Range, JYSK and now Homesense opening up across the country. For the first time I am beginning to wonder is there any future for us in retailing going forward. Most new shops are now opening on the edge of town in huge units.

As we expanded it no longer became viable to do all non selling activities ourselves. This has significantly increased our cost base along with the cost or running a warehouse. We need a warehouse to carry any bulk purchases. Indeed we have moved more and more to central buying as time has gone on.

Retailing has always been uncertain but never more so than now. In my own head I'm torn between moving away from homewares gradually to where is the conundrum.

Is anyone interested in starting a Retail Specific Thread on Boards where retailers can knock heads?

jimmii

Homewares like that certainly is getting incredibly competitive. I would imagine you'll need to be doing something a little bit different to stay ahead of the big guys or be in more convenient locations that don't have to be driven too. What about doing DIY workshops so people can come along and learn how to use more of the things you're selling? Theres a lot of people put there who don't have a clue so maybe an introduction to DIY course where you teach people how to put up a shelf or hang a door etc. That could be one way to differentiate yourself from the big chain stores not seen any of them doing things like that yet.

We could try a retail super thread but I think it would be hard for it to get much traction.

batman75

jimmii wrote: »

Homewares like that certainly is getting incredibly competitive. I would imagine you'll need to be doing something a little bit different to stay ahead of the big guys or be in more convenient locations that don't have to be driven too. What about doing DIY workshops so people can come along and learn how to use more of the things you're selling? Theres a lot of people put there who don't have a clue so maybe an introduction to DIY course where you teach people how to put up a shelf or hang a door etc. That could be one way to differentiate yourself from the big chain stores not seen any of them doing things like that yet.

Thanks for your reply. We don't sell DIY. It's soft furnishings, interiors and giftware. We own our premises so not easy for us to simply re-locate. Online might be where we can off set any decline in physical sales. We have a quirky product range.

Regarding the Retail thread there are so many people working in retail that it would be nice for them/us to have a place to bounce ideas off and unload worries etc

jimmii

batman75 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. We don't sell DIY. It's soft furnishings, interiors and giftware. We own our premises so not easy for us to simply re-locate. Online might be where we can off set any decline in physical sales. We have a quirky product range.

Regarding the Retail thread there are so many people working in retail that it would be nice for them/us to have a place to bounce ideas off and unload worries etc

We do homeware and gifts too we started doing furniture painting workshops and they worked really well so if that's not something that's being done near you then that could be an option. We sold them at €55 and they lasted 3-4 hours and cost us <€10pp and the average spend of those customers on that visit was roughly double the ATV overall so there was good secondary spend.

Do you do any of your own lines? I'm finding out big growth area right now is our own stuff the margin is obviously WAY higher too which is nice! They're by far our biggest selling products online too.

batman75

Most of our lines are branded but some are starting to be branded with our own logo. Furniture painting class sounds interesting. Whats involved in setting that up? We are big enough to buy out lines from a supplier. We definitely need more unique product. It would make sense that they are your biggest selling lines online given they are unique to you. We have found this year a difficult one but our suppliers are telling us it's not just us.

jimmii

Yeah hearing the same from suppliers. Never seen so much discounting as this year.

If you stock some paints they'll teach you the workshops as they know this is where the money really is but you could always just buy the paint from another retailer. The trickiest part is the expertise once you have someone who knows what they are doing then theres very little other costs unless you run the workshop with a piece of furniture. Ours was a technical class so was done on wooden boards teaching a few techniques but some people run them where you basically just learn one style and do it on a chair or stool or something.

Eco products are doing well for us too. We have bags made from plastic bottles, t-shirts from salvaged materials etc all sell at a premium too. People seem to be moving more towards looking for that than local in my opinion.

holyhead

jimmii wrote: »

Yeah hearing the same from suppliers. Never seen so much discounting as this year.

If you stock some paints they'll teach you the workshops as they know this is where the money really is but you could always just buy the paint from another retailer. The trickiest part is the expertise once you have someone who knows what they are doing then theres very little other costs unless you run the workshop with a piece of furniture. Ours was a technical class so was done on wooden boards teaching a few techniques but some people run them where you basically just learn one style and do it on a chair or stool or something.

Eco products are doing well for us too. We have bags made from plastic bottles, t-shirts from salvaged materials etc all sell at a premium too. People seem to be moving more towards looking for that than local in my opinion.

Eco products sounds intriuiging.

jimmii

holyhead wrote: »

Eco products sounds intriuiging.

Spring Fair will be swamped with Eco products this year by the looks of it. Not much you cant make from bamboo and natural fibres etc these days!