Children’s furniture retailer/cataloguer Aspace is due to open
its fifth store on 20th December in Fulham, London. Paul
Cunningham, managing director, told Catalogue e-business he plans
to open more stores during 2011, doubling the company’s portfolio
to eight stores by the end of the year.
Aspace currently operates stores in Bristol, Chiswick, Guildford
and Battersea, and Cunningham says the new stores will be located
“where we know we have obvious pockets of interest”.
In due course, he says, he will experiment with store locations
where Aspace doesn’t have a web and mail order stronghold.
The stores currently account for 25 percent of total retail
business-and sales are growing, with like-for-likes ahead 10
percent on last year. What’s more, the stores do not cannibalise
web sales, says Cunningham. He says the business experiences a
sales uplift in all channels in the areas where Aspace has a
store.
In 2009/10, Aspace turned over £13 million, and projects
£15 million this year. Of that, £12 million will come
from the retail business compared with £8 million last year.
Its manufacturing and wholesale business will account for the
rest.
Overall, catalogue and web sales still make up most of Aspace’s
retail turnover, with the web accounting for 50 percent of sales,
and telephone orders making up the other 25 percent. Cunningham
sees the web as an “execution channel”-customers
flick through a catalogue but make the order online. Part of the
focus for 2011, says Cunningham, is to mail smarter. In order to
drive this part of the business forward, a new head of marketing
joined the firm this past October.
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