Derby House has a new managing director. Nigel Cliffe joined the
equestrian equipment business in May from Mothercare, where he
was marketing director. His arrival is part of a wider
restructuring at the firm, which will see it close seven of its
eight stores in order to focus on its web and catalogue
business.
“The portfolio of stores doesn’t fit our trading model
going forward,” says Cliffe. He wants Derby House’s
remaining flagship store to become more experiential and plans to
hold events at the store’s grounds with the aim that the store
becomes more than just a place to buy equestrian goods-it becomes
a family day out. He also hopes to turn it into a centre of
equestrian excellence, something “you can’t do with a high
street store”.
Cliffe says he was brought in to manage Derby House because of
his retail background, and says that closing its shops is not
counterintuitive to that. “Derby House is still a retail
business, but the channels have changed.” Cliffe says he’s
working to improve the catalogue and website and add more
products to the range, a process he calls “integrating
flicks, clicks and bricks”.
As part of that integration, the Derby House catalogue has been
given a revamp; it’s smaller and will now be supported by
targeted minicatalogues during the year.
Even just in the first few weeks of the restructuring, Cliffe has
seen trading improvements, “the business has come through a
difficult trading period but the new strategy is starting to show
green shoots,” he says.
Sales in the stores, web and catalogue are up, says Cliffe, ahead
of expectations and significantly ahead of last year, though he
declined to disclose specifics.
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