GAME CHANGING PRODUCT & SERVICE

‘THE ANSWER’S YES, NOW WHAT’S THE QUESTION?’ Nikon-only retailer Gray Levett has not only received our annual Retailer of the Year Award for 2020, his business is also celebrating its 35th anniversary, while Nikon Owner magazine is in its 20th year. So what is it that keeps his clientele returning time and again?

The past 35 years have seen some seismic changes as regards not only the photographic industry but also the nature of retail within it. What started out for Grays of Westminster owner Gray Levett as a mail-order business run via small ads and conducted out of his sister Susie’s basement – using a desk constructed from an old door and twin filing cabinets – has grown into an internationally renowned specialist, which has just begun offering online sales and hosting YouTube videos for the first time. The decision to sell Nikon–only equipment – thought by his peers as slightly eccentric at the time – was famously inspired by a shop selling nothing but Christmas decorations. Like anything worth doing, that initial decision was based on a personal passion.

“I’d always wanted to own a Nikon camera,” Gray recalls, “but in my teens had to start out with an old Praktica. Making the jump to selling solely Nikon was considered extremely risky at the time, but now seems more common because of the likes of the Apple store, while now there’s even a shop selling only Tintin merchandise. But I knew that if we didn’t have something that was unique about us, we weren’t going to survive.”

Memorable moments for the business in the intervening years have included not just the opening of its present London location in 1989 – in a former barber’s frequented by Winston Churchill – but also winning retail awards from both Amateur Photographer and Practical Photography; an on-going ‘tradition’ starting back in 1994, when Grays had both a modest staff and turnover. Another signpost on the road to today’s

Now and then: Grays of Westminster today and below, back in the pre-Grays days when it was a barber shop once frequented by Winston Churchill

Below right: Regular communication: Gray maintains a dialogue with his customers once they’ve left the shop via the self published Nikon Owner magazine

Early days: Gray in the camera department at KJP (Keith Johnson Photographic) London

“Making the jump to selling solely Nikon was considered extremely risky at the time. But I knew that if we didn’t have something unique about us, we weren’t going to survive.” Gray Levett, owner, Grays Of Westminster

success was late filmmaker Stanley Kubrick becoming a loyal customer, leading to ever increasing connections to the world of film and TV, maintained to this day – with one animated movie requesting more than 100 manual-focus Nikon lenses from the store in one order.

Asked how Grays has been able to attract and maintain such a loyal customer base over the years – the ultimate aim for any shop owner – Gray quotes his business mantra: “The answer’s yes, now what’s the question?” The devotion, it seems, flows both ways.

A massive change in the time Grays of Westminster has been trading was obviously the increased presence and eventual dominance of digital cameras – a change, its owner says, the business didn’t resist. “And once Nikon released the D1, it really opened things up,” he recalls, singling out the D850 as another choice favourite which has maintained popularity.

As well as it being the 35th anniversary of the retail side of the operation, as many will know Grays also publishes Nikon Owner magazine, doing so in order to maintain communication with its customers and an extended dialogue beyond initial purchase – while again encouraging continued loyalty. As an added ‘hook’ for subscribers in what is also the publication’s 20th anniversary year, readers have access to both a helpline and an extended warranty on any goods they buy. “People tell us it’s like having a photographic family,” Gray concludes. And, as the old adage attests, a family that plays together stays together.