Toons expand own-brand

Williams, Managing Director

Toons Home Furnishers, reveals their latest own-brand product.

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Independent furniture retailer Toons Home Furnishers has announced the launch of its new own-brand mattresses.

The move into offering an own-brand UK manufactured mattress follows a successful own-brand carpets initiative, with Toons stating that it feels its customers can relate to its reputation as a strong and reliable brand.

Commenting on the launch, Huw Williams, Managing Director of Toons Home Furnishers, said: “The decision to launch the new mattresses as own brand was taken because we think the Toons Brand has a good enough reputation to stand in its own right and feel customers will relate well to it.

“We wouldn’t put our name to a low-quality product with these made in Britain and come with a five-year guarantee, which are also NBF approved. The mattress features 1,000 pocket springs with deep cotton fillings and are hand tufted. They have luxury 100% viscose panels and border.

“By own branding these we can offer our customers at around 10% below equivalent branded mattresses and still produce good margins for the business. It follows our own branding of carpets, which has been very successful for us.

“It is early days, but the reaction has been favourable from customers who want to get value for money, which is becoming increasingly important to them in the cost-of-living crisis. We look forward to growing this area of our business.”

Earlier this year, Toons shared another year of growth throughout 2022, which saw turnover reach £5.5m, an increase of £1.4m on 2020/2021. Despite large capital investments in the business during this period, the company still turned a profit of £305,000 and ended the period debt free.

Included within these investments was the complete replacement of its vehicle fleet, moving from mainly leased to owned, which has reduced logistics costs and enhanced environmentally friendly processes.

“The key to our success is the people who I work with in Toons,” said Huw. “They provide a great and knowledgeable service to our customers and this leads to a lot of repeat business and recommendations and consistently high levels of customer satisfaction in our surveys.

“Most importantly, they enjoy their jobs and care passionately about the business, with the average length of service for Toons staff being around 25 years.

“We have been in business for 53 years in the East Midlands and have a good reputation for service and quality. We have a huge amount of repeat business and new customers from personal recommendations.”

Over the next 12 months, Toons will be installing solar panels, which will make the store self-sufficient in electricity and will also provide an additional income stream by selling the surplus. The move is part of its ongoing sustainability initiative, where the business is continuing to evolve its practices towards a greener future.

Huw continued: “We currently recycle all of our cardboard and mattress returns and around 50% of our plastic. We are seeking a workable solution for recycling carpet uplifts but are not there yet with that.

“We changed all of our lighting from fluorescent to LED, which in hindsight was a good decision due to the increases in energy costs, along with updating our vehicle fleet with more efficient fewer polluting vehicles. We sell a number of products, carpets and furniture made from recycled plastics and this is becoming an increasingly important trend from customers.”