Sandra Humble, director of retailer Linthorpe Beds and guest Bed Expert, talks about how trends have changed from when Keith and herself first started the company back in 1991.
Location, location, location
“Out of town” locations were classed as industrial units and retail had no part in this type of location. Town centres were king, and shoppers flocked in and “mostly” on weekends by bus. They were very happy with the choice of a particular day for delivery and would wait in all day without a quibble.
Retail parks and other “out of town” locations with free car parking are now top of the list when we look for a new location. Customers prefer to get as close as possible to a store and expect parking to be free. Technology now enables us to give our customers a 3-hour delivery slot on the day they have chosen, and they are mostly over the moon about this.
Cashless society
Back in the day, everyone would presume they would pay with cash and a question sometimes was raised “do you accept Barclaycard or Mastercard”? If it was the latter, we had clunky machines that took an imprint of the card onto the voucher and then we had to bank this with the cash at the end of the day. Now, it’s nearly all by card.
Trends
Continental headboards, ottoman and stool sets were very much in vogue, the top colours for years were very kitsch, Dusty Pink and Dusty Green. We have gone through a long period of time selling fabric bedframes or divan bases and headboards in 50 shades of grey, and now we are moving into a more pleasant palate of naturals with autumnal accents.
Mattress trends have changed enormously from 30 years ago. Memory and gel foam hadn’t even been thought of in our industry and pocket springs were classed as a luxury item whereas now they are run of the mill and customers expect this. Generally, people now understand the importance of spending more time and money on choosing their new mattress, which has been great for the trade as a whole.
Where do customers buy their new bed?
In the past customers shopped very locally, which unintentionally was more environmentally friendly than today’s customer who will buy from anywhere and doesn’t think of all those miles a courier has to go to deliver a mattress.
Our business model is primarily focused on Bricks and Mortar and due to well-trained sales staff it is a forever expanding business, but as we all know online shopping is growing hence why we have two websites, one www.linthorpebeds.co.uk, where we focus on our local customer where they will get a feel of what we sell before they actually come into store, and the second one, www.mattresses365.co.uk, where we focus on national customers. It’s always a challenge for the sales team when, once a customer finds what they are looking for, they go online to compare prices whilst still in store. Therefore, we find our own label and suppliers doing branch only ranges are preferable.
Administration
This is where an enormous change has happened to our industry and the world over. We were paper based on everything, from customer order forms being duplicated with a carbon copy between a duplicate book to give us a customer copy, delivery note and the original. Orders to suppliers were given by telephone, which then they moved over to fax machines and eventually automated via email.
The accounts office used to run a double entry system, vat return was sent via the General Post Office together with a cheque, now of course it’s all done via MTD. Companies like Sage accounts saved us hours and hours of data entry and the result being real time useful information at hand. So, in short, technology has changed us forever. Persistence in moving with the times has given us and our family a great life and a fantastic business model for future generations to come.
