When your website describes your bathroom displays as 'mouth watering', you know you've got a lot to live up to, but first impressions of Jones and Company are certainly promising.

Glancing at the window display on my way to meet co-partner Darren Sillsby, I get a glimpse of Jacuzzi's Egg bath from Pinninfarina, and a modern take on a traditional slipper bath from Kohler. For a sleepy Cathedral city like Salisbury, it seems an ambitious statement of intent, but the big red 'sale' signs are perhaps a more telling indication of the state of the local market. Times are tough, and on the day of my visit the company's 30% summer discount is being extended to the end of September. However, Sillsby remains confident they have the right product mix to deal with the gloomy outlook.

"There's been a bit of a dip but we're doing all right," he tells me. "I'd say we're steady. I've got two nice orders this week, one for £18,000, one for £30,000 and my partner David has had two as well. If that continues on a weekly basis then it's a case of thanks very much indeed. We noticed the slowdown a while ago but the people coming in now are more serious, the appointment rate has shot up. If they were worried about the credit crunch they wouldn't come in at all."

It's a fair point, and although the 5,500sq ft store seems quiet, Sillsby shows me figures confirming they fit around 25 kitchens and bathrooms a month. "We have weeks when it's as dead as a Dodo and the next week you're fighting your way through them," he says. "Our typical age group is anything from 30-70. Average spend on the kitchen side is between £12,000 and £15,000 and on bathrooms around £5000."

Neutral blend

Jones and Co began trading way back in 1945 and moved to its present city centre site 20 years later. A typical blend of kitchens, bathrooms and the occasional bedroom, it's run by Sillsby and fellow partners David Atkins and Emma Cooksley. There's also a well-stocked hardware section, a feature of the company since its original incarnation as a traditional ironmongers. The main supplier on the kitchen side is Wentworth from Mereway, although the firm also supplies the more bespoke Charles Hedgecock range from The Cupboard Door company. Other doors are bought in from Burbidge and PWS.

It's all a far cry from the mid sixties when the store featured the likes of Hygena, Elizabeth Anne and Grovewood, but some of the staff go back nearly as far. "We've got one guy who's been here 35 years," Sillsby laughs. "He came here in his shorts and he's still in them - he works in our warehouse."

The showroom itself is impressively spacious. The older part was a former stables and the layout forms a basic horseshoe shape. Back in the eighties, the company bought the adjoining bike shop and can now accommodate around 50 displays. "We can't extend any further unless we take over the pub next door but then we'd all be in it," Sillsby laughs. "The bike shop gave us the frontage we never had."

Traditional tastes

Despite the modern bathroom display in the window, the kitchen side of the business seems a little less adventurous. "This is a very traditional area," Sillsby explains. "Cream is always a good benchmark, oak is also popular but maple has had a dramatic decline over the last year-and-a-half. Oak is timeless, it doesn't mature at the same dramatic rate as maple can."

The company is currently considering adding to its high gloss ranges, with Salisbury apparently beginning to embrace more modern styles. "We've got a black gloss unit coming," Sillsby says. "It does get a bit boring otherwise because we always sell the same kitchens. It's nice when you get your teeth into something different. Even if they don't have an orange one, some people are beginning to go for something more dramatic, and it's not always the younger set. We used to do a lot with Hacker but the German market dropped and it became difficult to sell German kitchens. It's changing now and we're considering them again. They've always been strong on the gloss side."

The idea with the kitchen layout is to alternate colours and finishes, generally between cream and oak. "We want warm contrasts but we weren't brave enough to put a bright red gloss one in," Sillsby says. "We sell a lot of Second Nature's natural finish from PWS so we put that one in and phased out the other oak one."

Appliances come mainly from Neff, with whom they have a Master Partner agreement, and Miele. They've also just taken on Hotpoint, apparently having noticed that people are beginning to prefer lower-spec appliances and to "buy British". These are distributed mainly through Mike Walker and Maurice Lay.

"We try to hold as many direct accounts as we can," Sillsby says. "You build up a rapport with them so if it does go belly up and you need a favour you have someone to talk to. If it's someone you've never spoken to before it's harder."

The bathroom side of the store features cabinets from Utopia, Ellis and Montrose - "a good range at good prices with good shapes" - while other products come from Ideal Standard, Huppe, Bette, Showerlux, Mira, Kohler and Jacuzzi. However, despite the eye-catching Kohler bath in the window, the company itself has caused them a few headaches on the supply side. "Kohler has been an absolute nightmare," Sillsby admits. "They want products on display but then only supply two thirds of them. I think they've resolved it now though so we haven't kicked them into touch."

The store has benefited from the local demise of MFI, which recently closed a nearby store. As is usual for an independent, Sillsby believes what makes Jones better than its competitors are its service and the exclusivity of its products. "We try to be solus with certain items but with bathrooms it's very difficult because a lot of the industry is operated through distributors and they'll sell to anyone," he says. "On the other hand, we have something like Montrose, which is ours and nobody else has it, we're lucky in that respect."

Casualties

Returning to the market downturn, Sillsby believes distributors are currently most at risk. "It's going to be downhill for another year to 18 months at least," he says. "There will be casualties and distributors more than anybody. Unless they're buying just in time there's a huge initial investment on relatively dead stock that's just sitting there."

Finally, I'm shown to the bedroom section of the store, which for the moment consists of just one lifestyle display from Hepplewhite. Despite the Masterclass tag, Sillsby admits to ongoing problems with main supplier Hepplewhite. "They're very set in their ways," he tells me. "They're a little bit antiquated in the days of soft close drawer systems. We're looking to revamp this area and possibly change over to William Ball - it's nice and easy with 40cm, 45cm and 50cm units. With Hepplewhite you've got something stupid like 46.7mm. It's because they're old imperial sizes and they've made them metric. Even B&Q do soft close systems. I think they're now looking at doing it but it's been a painful headache getting them there. We'll make this display into an en suite bathroom because William Ball do the bathroom furniture as well so it will flow quite nicely."

Despite the various parts to the showroom, and various entrance doors, Sillsby says customers usually manage to find their way around. This is helped by allotting staff to various workstations around the store, not just in the main entrance. "We get people coming into the wrong section," he says, 'but someone is always there to help them out, and it can benefit us if they have to wander round other areas to get to where they want to be. It's often a case of, 'I didn't realise you did all this'."