Retail

Record breakers

Tony Griffin (centre left) and son Anthony (centre) with some of the Woolton team

Woolton Carpets is marking a major milestone after a record year

Woolton Carpets celebrated its 60th anniversary In March, six decades after the Incredible Hunk debuted and the Beatles made their first radio broadcast. It’s a fitting anniversary, on the back of a record performance for the 18,000sqft Garston, Liverpool retailer, which started out selling rugs and whipped carpet.

Tony Griffin, Woolton md, joined from school in 1975, before taking control of the business in 1992 as its founder retired. His son Anthony joined in 2018 after serving the company as a fitter.

‘We’re backed with about a thousand rolls of carpet. So from the corner shop, this is where we have ended up. We are powering through, going from strength to strength: last year was the best we’ve ever had. It wasn’t the norm – we broke the norm – but lots of others also had a good time,’ says Griffin, describing the 25% increase in turnover

It was not without problems. ‘When we were allowed to re-open, we simply couldn’t cope. We had to take a step back. We closed again for about 10 days to catch up and when we re-opened the next wave of customers arrived. It was relentless. And, something we’ve never done before, on 16 November we closed the fitting diary for the year. We’ve never had to do that before.’

The exceptional performance has continued into 2022, ahead of the business’s financial year-end this month.

‘Where will it end. Will it end?’ says Griffin. With the cost of living increasing sharply and further tax increases in the pipeline, the timing of any slowdown ‘is the million-dollar question. I’ve asked people and no one knows. Let’s make hay while the sun shines. We don’t see any let-up. We deal with a couple of big housebuilders – they are usually a good benchmark and they are just building, building, building. Every piece of land in the north-west seems to be under development. They can’t build houses fast enough.’

Cormar and Abingdon are Woolton’s major carpet suppliers. ‘We changed our policy pre-Covid to try and use production in the UK. Satin Touch from Abingdon and Sensations from Cormar are massive for us. The biggest increase has been in LVT. We were one of the first retailers to put in Invictus – that’s been a tremendous success for us. I think we had the third display stand when it was launched and we went all-out with the display. That’s part of the reason for the increase. On the back of that you look at other LVTs and laminate. The last time we went to Domotex you could see the amount of halls devoted to hard floors, so it was: “It’s obvious where this is going, we need to do something about it.”

‘Before lockdown we’d just embarked on splitting the showroom. We devoted about a third of the back end to hard floors. I feel that’s where the big increase has come from. Young kids now 

think nothing of spending £10,000 to £15,000 flooring their houses. If you go back 10 years you’d never have dreamt of it. I used to remember my £1,000 orders; now I only really remember the £10,000 ones.’

The store is firmly positioned in the mid and upper sectors. ‘We’ve just done a job today of 290sqm of Ulster Velvet. We do a lot with Ulster, we do a lot with Brintons. Axminster-wise, we do Ulster and the whole of the Whitestone Weavers range. We still have the older generation coming and buying the likes of Glenmoy and Glenavy. We also sell a little of patterned carpet: of the 44 broadloom carpets in stock, one is patterned and that’s a tartan. We’ve also had success with Crucial Trading and Fibre, which we took in pre-Covid.

‘Finding the right supply chain was the major challenge and we feel we have that in place now. Things have got easier since we reduced importing. We haven’t stopped completely, but buying container loads of carpet from Turkey and Belgium – that’s all cut back. We’ve increased business with Cormar, Abingdon, Victoria – and Furlong to a degree, as we can get if not next-day delivery, then 72 hours. The thinking was to keep everything in the UK and, in an emergency, we can be at Cormar or Furlong in an hour, or four to Abingdon. If it’s a real problem we’ll go and get it ourselves.

‘The past two years have brought it all home to roost. We need to support our own. And suppliers could change. What do you do if people are having problems with deliveries? – it’s just making the job harder for yourself. With being as busy as we’ve been you haven’t got time. Even down to artificial grass, which comes from all over the world… this year we’ve decided to do it more like a cut-length operation and buy two rolls rather than buying container loads. It was great in lockdown with artificial grass. We bought a container with 8,900sqm of it thinking that’ll probably do us for the year: by May I’d ordered another two containers. It was bonkers.

‘One of my biggest worries is no young lads want to fit carpet. Finding 

fitters is going to be an issue in five or six years when the guys who are training now go on the road. It’s the next wave that worries me because there is just nobody interested. Carpets are getting heavier and it’s a tough job these days.’ Woolton uses 15 teams of fitters.

The store has 15 staff. ‘We’re all in it together. If a job needs doing, go and do it. We’re a team, we have no bosses. I was in first this morning at 7.30am and I made the coffee. We can all do each other’s job on a day-to-day basis, and that’s the way we have always done it. We have six staff who are now 25 years plus service. We took on three staff during Covid but apart from them the most recent joined 17 years ago. We all know what we’re talking about – if we don’t know now, we never will.’

What about retirement? He laughs. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know whether I will or not, I don’t know. I want the business to carry on doing what its doing: growing and growing and growing. Anthony is involved, my nephew George is involved. They have bigger ideas than I have, better ideas than I have. I’m very much hands on, but hands on with a pen and piece of paper. They are on computers and social media, so I let them do it. Social media has been massive for us, with ads on Facebook and Instagram. In five or six years’ time we could be up another 25%. I don’t think you could squeeze any more out without being out of control.

‘If you speak to my son, he’d say: “I’ll get you up 25% no problem,” and I believe he could, but sometimes I pull him back and say slow down a bit. You can get turnover but you’ve got to keep a close eye on the profits. But we’re not involved in buying for a pound and selling for £1.50, so the margins are always there. We don’t have to discount it. Customers come through reputation.

‘We’re in the south of Liverpool, not in the most affluent area but we’re surrounded by the affluent areas. But we’re in Cheshire and the Wirral daily. All the developments around are £1m-plus houses. With the reputation we have, I’m sure the boys will carry it forward.’