26-27-28 Retailer Focus 3 Pager USE_muk_Grid 08/12/2016 12:56 Page 26
Retailer focus Inset: Exterior view of Barkers Home. Below right: A gateaux food prop beside the Mary Berry Collection. Bottom: Julie in the Cook, Dine + Wine department.
Northern lights Two Yorkshire family-run, independent department stores were among the winners of the recent Excellence in Housewares Awards. PH met up with Paul Thompson, managing director of Barnitts of York (which won Best Department Store (Independent) award) and Julie Poynton, homewares buyer for Barkers Home, Northallerton (the Excellence in Retail Display winner), and found out about the evolution of the respective stores. Contemporary lifestyle The name Barkers has been synonymous with service-led retailing in the market town of Northallerton in North Yorkshire for over a century; its high street department store was established in 1882. In March this year, Barkers Furnishing Store – which opened some 22 years ago on the outskirts of the town – officially opened its £3 million 20,000sq ft expansion, and re-branded as Barkers Home. The new name reflects the fact that the 60,000sq ft store is no longer exclusively for furniture, and now houses a stylish Cook, Dine + Wine department as well as a section devoted to gifts. Director, Ian Barker describes the expansion (the third on the store’s site, now at full capacity) as, “the biggest development in Barkers' history.” “Our aim was to create a more contemporary feel,” explains homewares buyer, Julie Poynton, who joined Barkers after leaving school 27 years ago and
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Progressive Housewares
became its youngest buyer at 19 years old. Having spent the vast majority of that time as its linens buyer, Julie was tasked with the mission to create the new cookshop for Barkers Home. The department is referred to as Cook, Dine + Wine to differentiate it from the high street department store, which has a cookshop which is bought for by AIS. “It’s been a steep learning curve, getting to know housewares brands, as well as looking at how we sit alongside our own department store and our local branches of Steamer Trading and Lakeland which are also in the high street,“ explains Julie. Hence Julie’s aim is to provide points of difference from those high street cookshops (including Barkers’ own). Julie describes herself as “religious” about attending trade shows, including Spring Fair, Autumn Fair, both editions of Top Drawer and Harrogate, all of which have been useful over the past year. “I got a lot of inspiration from Top Drawer and found some of our quirkier, more unusual collections there,” Julie reflects. Current hits include Country Pursuits mugs from Churchill China as well as Creative Tops’ Into the Wild – both appealing to countryside lovers in and around the town. “We have a strong local