The company’s showroom highlights the breadth of the brand’s portfolio By bringing the manufacturing in house, not only can we be flexible and agile with lead times, but we can also react to the needs of our retailers in terms of trends and styles their customers are demanding.”Īccording to Richard, this, along with the fact it holds around £10m retail value worth of stock at its warehouse, puts the company in a strong position – particularly during the pandemic. When you’re sourcing product, you’re often limited by the choice you can offer. “We wanted more control over the furniture we could supply. “We invested £1 million in machinery for our new production facility to enable us to run the furniture production side of the business as efficiently as possible and enable future growth,” Richard explains. Integrated into the Phoenix Bath-rooms company, they still manufacture made-to-order furniture for Acorn’s original customer base, under the Acorn brand, as well as producing stock furniture to meet the needs of Phoenix Bathrooms’ customers. To enhance its position and to maximise its furniture manufacturing capabilities and increase its service to independent retailers, in 2017 the Sharps made the decision to acquire Acorn, a local furniture manufacturer with a loyal customer base. But what’s key is that because we understand the market, not only are the products straight-forward in terms of fitting, but the range itself is comprehensive but not overbearing.” “We offer a broad range so that our retail partners have something to meet the needs of every customer. “Over the past 20 years, Phoenix has evolved from a leading whirlpool bath specialist into a bathroom distributor with one of the most exclusive and all-encompassing ranges available on the market today,” Richard says. We’ve aligned ourselves with independents because there’s synergy between us on quality and service To that effect, I believe we were one of the first distributors to go down the own brand route.” “Though we had effectively become a distributor, we didn’t want to go down the traditional route of selling brands. Products under the Phoenix brand are designed and developed by Richard and the UK team in partnership with manufacturing partners in Europe and the Far East. Having worked in the family business since the age of 16 – from the warehouse and factory floor to his current role of MD – it’s fair to say that Richard has effectively had an unofficial apprenticeship in bathroom business management. While it may not have been deliberate, its name couldn’t be more appropriate to describe the latest chapter in the Phoenix Bathrooms story. In mythology, the Phoenix is said to represent trans-formation, strength, and renewal. “However, as trust in our understanding of the industry and our service grew, our customer base started asking for more product and so we progressed – quite quickly – becoming a distributor offering brassware, furniture, sanitaryware etc on top of the baths. “Originally called Phoenix Whirlpools, for some time we were a bath specialist,” Richard Sharp explains.
It began life as a bath distribution business – with a particular focus on whirlpool bath systems – and has organically evolved into a complete bathroom product supplier as chairman Nicky and his son, company MD, Richard Sharp (pictured), recognised the changing needs of the market. Richard Sharp, managing director of the Leeds-based Phoenix Bathrooms business, reveals details of its new strategy and explains why its transformation is good news for independent bathroom retailers.īased in Leeds, the company was established in 2000 by Nicky Sharp, one of the original founders of Just Trays (now JT).
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