CEO INTERVIEW

Whitworth Nick

Cornwall is home to some leading clothing brands – Seasalt, Frugi, Finsterre to name a few, and Celtic & Co. We meet Nick Whitworth, who along with his wife Kath, founded the Newquay-based business 31 years ago as a manufacturer of sheepskin boots and since grown it into a £15 million business, exporting across the world.

How has business been. Has the pandemic affected things?

We had that initial, panic is the wrong word, but that “oh my God what’s happening” feeling for the first two weeks, when business sort of fell off a cliff. But after those first couple of weeks it was almost back to normal, and from week four and five onwards, it just has not stopped. That whole online shopping trend, just has not stopped. It will be interesting to see how it comes back again.

Nearly all of our orders are online or on the phone. Our own shop out front had to close, so that had a small impact, but as a percentage of our whole turnover it was not significant enough to worry us. So everyone went online. Can’t go on holiday, can’t go out to eat or a drink, but they’ve got money. If you look at the stats, the amount of money that has been saved in the UK by people is in the billions. I read somewhere, £134 billion waiting to be spent.

You’re at the luxury end of the market, so do you think people have been spending more on luxury items?

Definitely. The amount of money being spent has gone up significantly, in the UK especially. So, we’re picking up a lot of new customers. We can’t say 100% of them will come back and buy again, but a lot of them will. They were looking for the type of stuff we sell, homewares, slippers, lovely comfy jogging bottoms and jumpers. And made in Britain as much as possible, and all sustainable. That’s ticking a lot of peoples boxes. I’m not saying that’s a reason why everyone would then buy, it just builds up. And, of course, we have the stock, which so many people with their stuff coming in from China, stopped. We were much more in stock and were restocking as our sales kept going forward.

How much of your things are made in Britain?

About 70% at the moment. And the rest is in Europe which is only a lead time of 4-6 weeks. It’s not much longer getting things from Europe than a UK factory. It’s a bit quicker in the UK because you haven’t got all the carriage times and hassles we now have with Brexit for instance, but from places like China you could wait 3-6 months from putting in an order.

Do you hold much stock?

Yes, we try not to run out stock. In this past year, when business has been 60, 70% up, you can’t have everything in stock all the time. But we can reorder, it’s not a case of we’ve run out and will have to wait six months. We say to customers you can order now and have it six weeks’ time.

How important is it to be in stock? Will people simply go somewhere else if they see something is out of stock?

What we are seeing is that customers who are brand new, they’re more reluctant to wait, but an existing customer is happy to wait That is one of the biggest questions you can ask and something we have been asking because they know the quality of the product already. ourselves for years. A few weeks ago, we tried testing this. Everybody thinks if you’ve So, are people more likely to be happy to got to wait a few weeks, surely a load of wait the more expensive a product is? people wouldn’t bother. They’d go and get a different jumper, or a different colour. So we did a test. We picked a garment in a certain colour, a ladies jumper, really popular, thousands in stock, but we were telling half our customers online, so sorry, it’s out of stock, it’s going to be with you in four weeks. Of course, if they did order, they didn’t have to wait, but got a lovely surprise when it To us it wasn’t a risk but more of a considered plan Well, this is what we don’t know, and this is what we’re going to test this autumn and winter with £1k coats. If four weeks isn’t much, what would six weeks do? Sales would fall off a cliff I would assume, but it didn’t in the first test and we were quite surprised. turned up the next day.

But that 'will they, won’t they' buy it, it ended up making very little difference. And this is an £85 jumper. So, we’re going to have to keep testing. Will people wait for a £1k coat?

You started the business in 1990

Yes, August 20th was the first day. And all we made was the one product, nothing else, just the Ugg boots. And all I was doing was making them to order, the occasional person off the street in Newquay and a few surf shops, a couple in Wales and a few in Cornwall and that was it.

And why Ugg boots? You come from an engineering background with the RAF. Was it a case of right place, right time?

It was my wife’s recommendation to be fair. I had got out of the Air Force, but I lived Cornwall. I bought myself out of the Air Force, left early, and joined BT as an engineer. But I had always wanted to be self-employed and stay in Newquay. My mother saw an advert in the Cornish Guardian, that the Ugg factory was up for sale. And my wife had bought a couple of pairs over the years and said how much she loved the boots, but just could never get hold of them. So I had a look and thought, I could do this. I don’t know why I thought that, because I couldn’t sew! And so it went from there. I think we did £22k turnover in the first year and from that tiny little acorn, from the back of Wesley Yard in Newquay, it has grown to £15.5 million now.

And you copyrighted the Ugg name and sold those rights on

I decided to trademark it which was probably the best thing I ever did. It was six or seven years later when we sold that to a company in America who wanted to buy it. They had tried to register in every country in the world but got blocked by my registration.

We had already gone mail order by then, because dealing with surf shops and trying to get paid by them was an absolute nightmare! They were dealing with all the big boys then, the O’Neills and Quiksilvers, who had them on huge payment plans. And that was their bread and butter. A few pairs of boots from Wesley Yard wasn’t their bread and butter, so I was always at the back of their getting paid list.

So, I eventually decided to go mail order and become a catalogue company because selling to surf shops in Newquay was never going to make me much money.

And was this when the product range started expanding beyond boots?

We had already started to a bit. A local had come in with a pair of slippers and said they had had them for years but they started falling apart, and asked could I make a pair just like them? So I had a look and was able to make a pair. Off he went, came back about two weeks later and said his wife wanted a pair! We made another pair and then thought why don’t make more. So, we then had a boot and a slipper. And from there we started to make a few other bits and pieces and then went mail order and people started going can I have the jumper the model’s wearing. We’d go no, we don’t do jumpers! We just do the boots. But in the same catalogue, we could sell more products. So, we started doing bits and pieces, coats, knits, hats and anything in sheepskin to start with.

Was that quite a big leap?

Sheepskin and accessories wasn’t a huge leap because we were dealing with the same suppliers. The clothing was a total leap into the dark. The design, the manufacturing. We didn’t know where the factories were, we didn’t know

anything. I said to Kath I think this would be a good idea, she took it on and here we are 15, 20 years later doing clothing.

It appears to me that was quite a big risk at the time. Would you describe yourself as a big risk taker?

I’ve been asked that a few times over the decades and I would always say no. To us it wasn’t a risk but more of a considered plan. But people would say your house is on the line, if you lose this business don’t you lose your house? Yes, the bank would take And we started in Germany a few months ago and have had a fantastic time. Japan is next for us and is about to go live. everything. And they would say you don’t think that’s How does the process risky? I’d say because we’re not relying on anyone, it’s us, I think we will work when you go to a new country? Do you myself and my wife, and we’ll put the work in, which we have a better share physically have to go out there, which is obviously always have done for years of the UK market difficult at the moment? and years and years. So, at the time it didn’t seem risky, we were just really opening up and widening our reach, but it was us doing the work. going forward No, we don’t. We do a lot of research about mail order buyers - their rough age, income per capita etc. But over the years you pick up things. Germany loves mail order. Most Looking back, do you view it as more European countries are rapidly taking it on. risky now? Japan is very big on mail order. You pick a market first where you don’t have to do any translations - America, Canada, Australia. Easy, you just use your own website and clone it over into their currency etc. But then you run out of countries very quickly, because most countries you do have to translate. Germany was our first and it has worked incredibly well. You do it, test it for a month or two to make sure the functionality works and doesn’t upset people and then start marketing, which digitally now is very easy.

No. What I would say is I think we took too long doing it because we were so cautious and careful. We wouldn’t bet the house on a collection, we would test it and be careful. I see sometimes now how a company goes from 0 to £20 million in three or four years because they’ve had huge investment. The White Company started after us and are cruising off to £150 million. If you’re in London and have connections and investment, you can grow a lot of quicker.

Would you say your growth over the years been ‘steady’ then?

Very, very steady growth. Even through the tough times we were growing 10, 15% every year. This year it has been more than 70%, but there’s been a pandemic and a huge reason for that.

And much of your growth in recent times has been export. Has export always been a priority?

It was a de-risk strategy because we used to be just mail order in the UK. We thought if ever there was a recession in the UK, our turnover was going to dive. And it was getting tougher and tougher, the mail order market is very saturated in the UK.

I thought in America there are 300 million people who hardly know us, and a big percentage who are a very wealthy. So, we tried America and that low hanging fruit makes the ordering very profitable, very quickly. And we thought, if we’re doing America, why don’t we do Canada? Australia? Each year now we’re adding new countries and translations. Canada was hard work for a couple of years, the brochures didn’t work very well but now online it’s working really well. We had a fantastic year last year in Australia, absolutely phenomenal.

Do you tailor any of your lines specifically for countries. I assume fashions change from place to place?

No, because we’re not a high fashion business.

Yes, I read somewhere you refer to yourself as ‘slow fashion’. What does that mean?

Fast fashion is, Primark, Topshop, for example. Every six weeks, cheap garments in, sell them out, and get the next in. Almost making people buy for the sake of it. You might only wear it once, but it only cost a tenner so what does it matter. Chuck it in the bin, very non sustainable. Slow fashion is creating quality pieces, using natural fibres which can be worn and cherished for years and can be passed on afterwards. Buy less, but buy better. It’s a slow burn and the customer keeps coming back.

But do countries differ much with what they like?

Some do. We don’t market that way deliberately, but as we see results come in. For instance, America doesn’t buy so much of our sheepskin from our factory here in Newquay, because they’ve got Ugg over there, although everything they sell is from China, so we play the made in Britain card heavily. But generally you would find the top five best-selling products in the UK, near as damn it would be the top five in places such as America. By country it doesn’t massively differ, but whether that will be the same in Japan, different culture, who knows?

Roughly how many different SKUs do you have now?

By style we have around 300/325, depending on the season, different styles. Obviously within that there are all the different colour and size variations. So actively, somewhere up to 5,000 SKUs.

That’s a lot compared to the early days!

Yes, we’ve ran out of space in our warehouse so we will be moving shortly into bigger premises. We’re keeping this one in Newquay, but will be opening another warehouse at Indian Queens.

Wouldn’t it be easier to grow the business somewhere more centrally, like Birmingham for example?

We love Cornwall. We have always said we would never leave Cornwall. It inspires us down here, it’s what we design our clothing around. It’s that relaxed, casual living. We’re not tailored and party dress outfits type. Even our coats, they’re a £1k, but can be worn to the pub with a beautiful jumper. It’s the way we live and the way our catalogue shows Cornwall. We’re not city people.

Do you trade on the ‘Cornishness’, particularly with British customers?

Yes, very much so. On the beach, the cliffs, it’s where everyone dreams of coming on holiday sort of thing. That’s what our clothing is for. It’s not for going out in the evenings to city restaurants.

How many countries do you go to now?

We have designated websites for America, Canada, Australia, Germany and now Japan, but we use a global logistics company and sell to over 100 countries, 60 or 70 of which I would call active.

I believe export accounts for about a third of all business. Going forward is that share going increase do you think?

I would say it should slowly increase, because America technically should become a £20, £30 million business eventually, it’s growing every year. But this year the UK has grown phenomenally because of the pandemic, so the UK has become more significant again.

Will that maintain, once we return to normality?

It depends how much of their money will people continue to spend online.

It’s about 35% at the moment, whereas a year ago it was 20%. It’s going to come back down, but I don’t think it will come back down to what it was, so I think we will have a better share of the UK market going forward.

And you’ve won the Queen’s Award for

Export in both the last couple of years. That must have been special?

I don’t think it can get any better. It really put a smile on people’s faces when Prince Charles came down last year, two weeks before the pandemic.

I was going to say, very fortunate with the timing!

We did wonder if he would shake hands, but he did! He thoroughly enjoyed himself, spoke to everybody and was absolutely brilliant. The staff here loved it.

For other businesses thinking of getting into export, what advice would you give them?

That’s a very hard question to answer, because we’ve done it very slowly and carefully. You can try and get advice from the various Government agencies, but I’ve never found them that practically helpful. You’ve kind of just got to get on and do it. We did a trade mission once, but it doesn’t actually help you do the job. Obviously, a lot of people do these trade missions and do very well out of them, but down here in Cornwall I found it quite hard. You’re trying to run a business, you haven’t got time to go swanning off on missions to Japan and China all the time.

So I think it’s a hard question to answer. I think it’s using your common sense and lots of hard work. Don’t think of having any social life, it all goes out the window, and you just work hard!

Is that a lesson you’ve learned not just in export, but running your own business generally?

You’ve kind of just got to get on and do it

Yes, no one does your job for you, you’ve got to do it yourself.

You employ nearly 70 people now. As you’ve grown, has it been easier to manage? Do you have more time for yourself now? Are you a good delegator?

marketing and ecommerce. It’s looking for the right person and if you drag them down here kicking and screaming, they’re not likely to stay because it’s a different world down I don’t think you can be a delegator when you’re self-employed. If I’m being honest, both myself and my wife have admitted we’re control freaks. Delegating here. If you can find the right person who already lives down here and loves the place, far better. So it’s a question of when you see them, grab them. is hard. It’s easier to do the job yourself rather than delegate then What are the plans say this is how you do it and train. for the future? But having said that, we can’t do An existing Same sort of growth it all. It’s about finding the right people who can do the job and be independent and get on with it, but make the right decisions. Those who can walk the walk and talk the talk I suppose. And when you find them, they are worth their weight in gold. customer is happy to wait because they know the quality of the product already trajectory? If anything I think we’re looking to go a bit steeper. The fact that we’ve taken up 24,000sq ft at Indian Queens and keeping what we’ve got here and growing our own production hugely to Can recruitment be keep up with all of tough in Cornwall? this, as well as asking Definitely. We are looking for sewing machinists at the moment, we think we are going to grow suppliers for more products, I think we’re on a good upward trajectory. Sales last year were £15.5 million, it was only £9.3 million the year before. phenomenally again this year and we’re So in the next five years, do you expect looking for six sewing to double that? machinists. But there’s no industry We’re certainly aiming for £25 million. down here anymore, you Are you still enjoying it as much as you have to train were in the early days? everybody yourself and it’s the same with the more senior positions, It’s harder. You think you’ve got lots more people and a lovely management team, but all the numbers are bigger and the decisions are bigger and there’s more of them. I wouldn’t say it’s got any easier. But I try to take more time off now considering I’ve gone past 60 now. Trying to delegate more as you were referring to earlier, because you have to. And what if something happened to one of us, you can’t depend on me and Kath anymore.

And your daughter works in the business?

Yes. Clare is on the senior team on the marketing and product side.

Going forward will it always be a family business, even when you’ve retired?

Yes, but where that will go exactly I’m not sure. As we grow and get bigger, they’ll be some bigger monetary decisions to be made. I will always adapt and do whatever we need to do to make sure the business stays here in Newquay and Cornwall and grows. I don’t want to limit it.

And do you concentrate very much on your core business. Have you ever been tempted to diversify, buy another business and do something different?

We bought another business a couple of years ago, the Morelands sheepskin business which was based in Somerset so we bought it down to Cornwall. It’s a separate business we’re running from the premises.

So, you would always consider buying a business if the opportunity came along?

It would have to have a similar ethos. It would have to be natural, I wouldn’t want to buy, I don’t know, a nylon or rubber injecting business. Something where my skills could relate to and we could add value.

Do you think all those years ago when you saw the advert in the paper for Ugg, had it been a totally different business, you could have ended up doing something completely different?

Yes, I very nearly bought a pushbike repair and cycle hire business, but it fell through at the last moment for whatever reason I can’t remember now. Instead, I found this boot one instead.

So in another world, you could be running a £15 million bike business?

(laughs) Yes, a mini Halfords! I don’t know, no idea! I just love business.

In a recent press interview, TV presenter, Kate Garraway provided a harrowing example of the importance of planning for the future and, in particular, she highlighted why putting Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) in place is essential.

Garraway’s husband, Derek Draper’s battle with COVID has been widely covered in the media. When Draper was placed in an induced coma of June last year, Garraway found herself unable to access his bank or credit cards, she was unable to refinance their mortgage and, in one case, was charged nearly £900 for a replacement mobile handset. Despite being his spouse, as Draper did not have a LPA in place. Without a LPA, she was faced with the prospect of making an application to the Court of Protection to be appointed as Draper’s deputy. This is a costly and lengthy process and Draper would need to be assessed to determine whether he lacks capacity to manage his affairs.

A LPA is a legal document that enables an individual or individuals chosen by you to deal with your affairs if you become unable to do so at some point in the future. Putting a LPA in place will at least alleviate some of the stress and upset that your family faces in the event of incapacity and will ensure the smooth running of your finances.

There are two types of LPA:

PROPERTY AND FINANCIAL AFFAIRS

In the event that you are unable to look after your finances due to ill health, accident or incapacity, your chosen attorney can step into your shoes and can deal with, for example, the running of your bank account, management of your investments and buying and selling of property.

HEALTH AND WELFARE

This document would enable your chosen attorney to make decisions on your behalf, if you are unable to do so, regarding issues which impact upon your medical condition and personal welfare.

Nick Latimir, Solicitor at RRL Wills · 01872 276116 · nick.latimir@rrlwills.co.uk

PREP Grants and paid-for R&D

OPEN MORNING

for ages 3 - 11 For ages 3 - 11 Saturday 7 MarchSaturday 26 June 10am – 12pm 10am - 12pm Highertown, Truro, Cornwall TR1 3QN

TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM TO BE truroschool.com Discover more about our welcoming community in which children are encouraged to flourish, thrive and be happy at truroschool.com