It's never easy to know who to trust in a business like this. What makes a customer buy from one showroom but not another? Price is obviously key, but so too is the person behind the desk.

Retailers, as we know, come from a variety of backgrounds. Among others, there's the ambitious novice who's learnt a CAD package and now calls himself a designer. There's the bloke with a bit of money, and a bit of business nous, who's always wanted his own showroom. And there's the fly-by-night chancer with an eye for an opportunity.

In a struggling market, maybe not all of them will survive, but you sense people like Alan Simpson are the ones who stand the best chance. Owner of Birchwood Interiors in Macclesfield, Simpson is an old school veteran of the industry. Trained as a cabinetmaker after leaving school, he later became a kitchen fitter before setting up the store in 2001. He knows the ropes and you get the feeling he's seen it all before.

A typical mid-market operation, his wife and son also work for the company along with another designer. Formerly three terraced houses, Simpson simply knocked them through to create a spacious 2,800sq ft showroom. The ground floor features a mix of mid-market kitchens while the upstairs is given over to bedrooms and home studies.

Wherever you go these days, the conversation tends to quickly turn to the state of the market and this visit is no exception. But as far as Simpson is concerned, there's no need to panic. "The media is frightening everyone," he insists. "People still have the money but they're frightened to spend it. We're still getting people coming in, but every morning on the news it's all doom and gloom. They might come to sign on the dotted line and then see the news and decide not to."

He has a point, but surely the downturn can't be blamed exclusively on the media? Isn't there a genuine sense of concern out there? "This year we'll tick over nicely and next year we'll do the same," he says. "We'll just have to weather the storm for 18 months. Last year we did £650,000 turnover, this year will probably be about £500,000."
But he also sends a word of warning to those who think the industry is just going through a blip: "The downturn is long-term, it's not going to get back to where it was. Three or four years ago we were doing really well. We had building site contracts and retail but nobody's building anything any more."

Relaxed approach

When Simpson first took the showroom on, all the offices were upstairs. To greet customers, staff had to stop work and come down. "That's intimidating," he says. "Customers are on their guard straight away because you're on to them. I thought if we put the office area in the showroom itself we could just carry on working when customers came in; it's much more relaxed. Now we just say hello, and let them look around for five minutes, there's no pressure. Even on visits we only spend an hour with them. People don't want you taking hours and hours round there. They'll come back in the store when it suits them."

My visit seems to have coincided with a change of thinking in the showroom. Since opening, the store has focused largely on a bespoke offering, made in its own nearby factory. The emphasis has always been on traditional kitchens and you sense Macclesfield is a little lagging behind in the style stakes. However, times are changing.
"We're around 12-18 months behind the South," Simpson admits, "but we are just slowly turning to the glosses. We're putting a new modern display in the back with a lime green wood grain."

Aside from its bespoke offering, the store supplies furniture from Leicester-based Prentice and from French supplier Sagne. It also buys doors from various suppliers including PWS, JJO and Uform.

Average spend on the kitchen side is around £11,000 but the majority of work comes from recommends and passing trade. "We had a company come in two years ago and do us a website for £3,500 but we didn't get a bean from it," Simpson laments. "People will never buy a kitchen on the web. I might try it again but it can do you more harm than good."

The store makes good use of its window displays, showing a traditional selection in one with a more contemporary feel currently being planned for the other. "We're going to have a black gloss kitchen," Simpson explains. "We'll make the cabinets and get the doors from PWS. The beauty is that we can put it straight in whereas we've got one going in from Sagne in France that we're having to wait for. There's nothing else on the market like it though."

The bespoke offering is branded as Birchwood Kitchens with Simpson's son David handling the factory operation. "He supplies to 20 different companies but because he's my son and I'm a director of the company I get priority," Simpson laughs. "We get first delivery. I do all the planning and installation and organising the tradesmen. David and Len, my other designer, do the selling."

About 90% of cabinets Birchwood sells are made in its factory. "We make the cabinets and buy the doors," Simpson explains as he shows me round the traditional side. "This hand painted design has been on display seven years and will go for another seven, it doesn't date. They have their limitations - they have to go in a farm house or cottage, you can't put it in a modern house. It sells well; there's a lot of old houses and they don't want ultra modern."

To Simpson, stocking too much gloss doesn't suit his client base. "With hand-painted, when you get fed up of it you can just change the colour. But when you get to the high glosses they have their limitations because they're a fashion. In 10 years time the glosses will be gone. It goes through cycles - colours especially. You can sometimes tell when a kitchen was fitted by what colour it is."

On the appliance side, Birchwood is a main agent for both Neff and Smeg. However, Simpson has deliberately not gone down the 'Master Partner' route. "It's a bit of a nonsense really," he says. "Fifty percent of your showroom has to be Neff, that's all. You don't have to do anything else or be anything special. As far as we're concerned one manufacturer isn't enough so we've also got Smeg, we're a Studio of Excellence."

Supply, Simpson says, is his main day-to-day headache. Luckily for them, because they deal with Neff and Smeg they go direct and don't deal with a distributor. If they're asked for other appliance brands, however, it can cause problems.

Stock control

"Nobody stocks anything now," he says. "Some people come in and want a Belling or a New World and we do experience problems because that has to go through a distributor and they don't necessarily carry them in stock."
It's a problem that Simpson believes has been caused by the current downturn. "It's because of the cost and the market climate at the moment," he says. "But because we work so far ahead it doesn't normally create a big problem. We order everything two weeks before, not just in time. We've got a little warehouse behind the showroom to cover our backs."

Simpson has opted for Smeg and Neff because he believes customers can't buy their products off the internet any cheaper than from them. If they do they'll only get a year's warranty, whereas Birchwood can offer a two-year agreement. "We need support from our appliance brands when we've got several thousand pounds worth of product on display, but some are willing to sell at virtually cost price. Smeg can't stop it. I could set up an appliance site tomorrow but I've got enough on my plate. We'll fit products customers have bought off the net but we'll charge them for it and sometimes they end up losing out."

The upstairs section of the showroom is now totally dedicated to bedrooms and home studies. Simpson's wife's desk area doubles as a study display. Again the cabinets are manufactured in-house with the doors bought in to suit. Solid oak shaker styles, Simpson says, remain very popular although new "ultra modern" designs in cream and black gloss have just arrived which are apparently also catching the eye.

"We also do a Crown door so we show them that," he says. "We give them the price, then show them what we do instead. We tell them we can do our own range for a lower price. People like the fact that we're in control and not buying it from somewhere else. The factory is nearby so I can have things there the next day. That's why the French is a down side. The minimum waiting time is four weeks."

As impressive as the showroom is, ironically the whole thing may very soon be reduced to rubble. The whole street is in line for a multi-million pound redevelopment originally planned for 2006 and now scheduled for 2010. "It could be good news but it might never happen," Simpson smiles. "We could get a super new showroom on the main high street but it's come to a stop for the time being. But once plans are passed we start negotiating."