FEATURE training and tech support sessions. Showrooms are also an invaluable method of gathering ‘offline’ customer feedback, particularly from regular customers, while presentation of instruments and equipment to a high standard builds further credibility with brands and suppliers. AO’S CLAIM TO FAME The second online company with a surprise physical shop is electrical retailer AO World (AO.). It joined the stock market in 2014 with fanfare aplenty, outlining a bold ambition to disrupt the UK white goods market with a key focus on customer service. In addition to its core online business is something called ‘AO Outlet’, a brick and mortar shop located in Telford. The strategic rationale behind running a physical store is rather compelling, because AO Outlet is actually attached to AO World’s enormous recycling facility – in fact this is the biggest fridge recycling plant in the country. The Telford store sells professionally
Hotel Chocolat’s hotel in St Lucia
refurbished and end-of-line goods direct to the public. TIME FOR A CUPPA Quintessential British fashion brand Laura Ashley (ALY) is going through a bit of a rough patch, with its home furnishings in particular going out of vogue with customers. But one area where it does see potential is in hospitality. Despite few people knowing that Laura Ashley is involved in this sector, the company actually has nine licensed tea rooms and two licensed Laura Ashley hotels in the UK, and plans to expand this further. Situated typically in bourgeois hotels and the like, Laura Ashley believes its tea room concept can take off and become a key
TRAVIS PERKINS: A FASHION ICON? Did you know builders’ merchant Travis Perkins (TPK) used to have a workwear fashion brand up until 2018? It sold clothes under the Scruffs brand, principally to tradesmen. Scruffs sat under the Birchwood Tools subsidiary which was offloaded to rival firm Toolstream last year.
Workwear clothes now have mainstream appeal thanks, in part, to the popularity of US brands Carhartt and Dickies. Skateboarders and musicians are among the big fans of these clothes which tend to last longer than your average outdoor apparel.
part of total group revenue going forward. It also plans to expand this concept internationally. Also embracing the hospitality sector is Hotel Chocolat (HOTC:AIM), a chocolate seller who lives up to its name by having a hotel, based in the Caribbean. The only bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturer in the UK, Hotel Chocolat has its own cocoa plantation on the Rabot Estate in St Lucia. And given its idyllic surroundings, the company sought an opportunity to live up to its name and build a real hotel on site, named Boucan. The firm doesn’t talk about the hotel in its financial results, but in documents accompanying its admission to the stock market in 2016 Hotel Chocolat said the hotel – which has 14 rooms, a spa and a luxury restaurant – made $2.5m sales and $400,000 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in its 2015 financial year, with 80% room occupancy. By Daniel Coatsworth, Yoosof Farah, Martin Gamble and James Crux
26 September 2019 | SHARES |
47