Craftwork: HobbyCraft chief executive Chris Crombie

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The US arts and crafts market is worth US$32bn (£21.89bn) – almost the same size as the American film industry. It’s a fact that has HobbyCraft’s chief executive Chris Crombie licking his lips.

He believes the UK offers fantastic opportunities too, and is determined that HobbyCraft will lead the charge. The retailer’s model is based on the American one – arts and crafts superstores on retail parks, covering 7,000 to 10,000 sq ft, housing 35,000 products and catering for 250 crafts from painting and knitting to aircraft modelling. These shops are far removed from the kind of craft stores that Crombie grew up with.

“Before we came along,” he recalls, “craft shops used to be little shops in bad locations, and when you got there a bell rang above the door. You got a barrage of questions about why you’re there and what you wanted. We wanted to make our offer more accessible and less intimidating.”

He seems to have succeeded. In the 10 months to January 4, HobbyCraft’s pre-tax profits rocketed 122 per cent to£6.1m, while like-for-likes increased 4.6 per cent in the three weeks to January 4. Total sales jumped 10.1 per cent to£57.3m in the 10-month period.

HobbyCraft is certainly weathering the downturn. Crombie says the recession – confirmed by the Bank of England on the day of our interview – is actually contributing to booming sales. “People are definitely spending more time at home, and HobbyCraft benefits from that,” he explains. “They’re looking at low-cost things to do, and crafts is a low-cost leisure activity. Our average product costs£2.45 and the average spend is£14.50.”

Over Christmas HobbyCraft sold 2.7 million blank cards that customers made into greetings cards. Crombie says sales of beads – used for home-made jewellery – are doing “exceptionally well at the moment”. He puts it down to cash-strapped shoppers saving money by making their own goods. “It’s almost funky to say ‘I didn’t spend anything, I made this myself’,” he says.

Crombie does not see HobbyCraft’s success waning when the country exits recession. “People are still discovering us for the first time, there’s a lot of growth left in the market and will be for many years.”

So who does Crombie regard as competitors? “The obtuse answer is anyone taking people’s leisure time. WHSmith and John Lewis sell narrow ranges of what we stock, but no one comes close to stocking the authoritative range that we do.”

And authority is one of HobbyCraft’s mantras. “We have something for everyone at HobbyCraft,” says Crombie, who believes the retailer is number one “in terms of depth and breadth”.

In 1995, HobbyCraft opened its first store attached to the side of a Haskins Garden Centre (founder Warren Haskins is chairman of HobbyCraft). The format proved a success, beating its full-year targets in months. The next year two more stores opened on retail parks and, in 1998, the HobbyCraft company was formed. Crombie has been there since its conception and has helped grow the company into the 38-store chain it is today. By the end of 2009, HobbyCraft plans to have 42 stores and the aim is to open four to six stores a year thereafter.

Crombie has not ruled out opening smaller high street stores. “We have a lot of opportunities to open our current model in towns where we don’t have a presence, but there are certain big cities, for instance, where a high street store may be relevant,” he says.

Last year it did try out the high street through a concession in a Woolworths store in Plymouth. Crombie describes that as “opportunistic” and says: “The location was offered to us by Woolworths. We don’t have a presence in the Southwest so it was an easy way to access that market and trial our concept.”

Crombie said early indications were it was performing well, but after just 71 “glorious days’” trading, the outlet shut as Woolworths collapsed. Has it paved the way for more concessions with other retailers? “I don’t think we’d reject any opportunity, but it’s not something we’re aggressively pursuing,” he says.

While Crombie has dabbled in a bit of cross-stitching, he’d more readily describe himself as a retailer as opposed to a “crafter”. He says: “We’re keen to take on the strategy we’ve honed and keep opening across the UK. In these unprecedented economic times, our mission is to expand cautiously while not over-burdening ourselves with debt. We will continue to stick to our knitting.” Which is something Crombie should be very good at.