YPIE Blog – week one, day three – Fishpools

Day three of the Young Professional Industry Experience and Felicity Squires of Axminster Tools & Machinery writes about the group’s visit to independent retailer Fishpools.

Today we travelled to southeast England independent furniture retailer Fishpools and were greeted by chief financial officer and commercial director Ed Duggan. He gave us an overview of the company and a tour of its 60,000sq ft flagship store.

We noticed that the layout of the store was very carefully configured with each department tailored to the demographic of customer they are targeting.

We learned that Fishpools is a strong family owned retailer which pride themselves in excellent customer service and overall customer experience.

The business was set up by Ernest Fishpool in 1899. The shop originally sold clothes as well as furniture Today, decades and many changes later, the store is still based in Waltham Cross but is now the largest quality furniture store in the south east of England.

Ed explained how the company has adapted to the ever-growing digital landscape. For example, the company has invested a lot of money to market through digital channels.

However, Fishpools still value face to face customer interaction and use traditional marketing methods, such as brochure posting and radio broadcasting.

Ed explained to us the challenges throughout his career, highlighting the difficulties associated with the retail industry during the recessions and also the potential impact Brexit will have.