SUPPLIER FILE: Heritage gets intimate with retail

General manager, David Savage

Reducing the number of retailers you sell products through, on first glance, may not seem to make the most business sense. But that’s exactly what Heritage Bathrooms has been doing, halving its number of retailer accounts – from 600 to around 300 – with plans to shrink it further, to 250. General manager of Heritage Bathrooms, David Savage says it has allowed the company to better support its retailers, ‘creating an intimacy with the customer’ and offer an improved purchasing experience.

Following a customer survey , the company found “40% of consumers wished they had known more about their bathroom purchase”, explains marketing manager of Heritage Bathrooms Kaouther Montacer-Shivlock. And the company has worked to help consumers in making their purchase, offering support for its loyal retailers and improving the installation of the bathroom with easy-fit products.

To offer consumers a greater insight into all the products it sells – across 10 categories – Heritage Bathrooms has a brochure and 2D planner on its website. The planner provides a starting point for the consumer of how they want their bathroom to look, while a ‘find your showroom’ locator directs them to their nearest retailer. David Savage says “We want to encourage the consumer to see the Heritage brand and buy into it.”

While for its retailers, Heritage Bathrooms has worked on its communication and sales support. It has introduced a one point of contact – one order, one delivery, one invoice – to improve logistics and created a Spotlight newsletter to keep retailers in the loop on product availability. It also offers retailer training, not only on product information but on bathroom trends and consumer insight too. And most recently, Heritage Bathrooms has undertaken a programme of showroom display makeovers, for those that meet its tiered retail criteria in terms of display and support.

But one of the latest sales support tools has been the company’s investment in the Virtual World’s CAD software with all Heritage Bathrooms products now available.  Kaouther Montacer-Shilvock commented: “Virtual Worlds is a fantastic piece of kit that enables retailers to showcase a really wide choice of products and to increase sales opportunities. From a commercial perspective, not being able to visualise the finished look is often a stumbling block in the sales process. With the new Heritage Bathrooms 3D planner on Virtual Worlds, it will be much easier for showrooms to help customers bring their dream bathroom to life.  As such, we are expecting to see a much easier conversion of initial interest into actual sales.”

Although Heritage Bathrooms now has a smaller network of retail showrooms, it shows how investment by retailers in the brand, and vice versa, can reap powerful results.

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