Variety retailer The Works is on a transformational journey under chief executive Gavin Peck, revamping its store estate from jumbled, “Aladdin’s caves” into spaces focused on offering something for every member of the family.
Taking on the role of chief executive in 2020, Gavin Peck knew something had to change if he wanted The Works to attract more customers and generate more sales – so the group seized the opportunity to transform its store estate during the pandemic.
Peck took Retail Week on a tour of its Westfield London store, which showcases the transformed shops at their best and is now one of the top-10 performing stores in the retailer’s portfolio.
“We’re currently refitting old stores. We had 130 stores that were just a little bit old and dated, while some were brand damaging,” Peck says.
“We’re halfway through refitting these stores to bring them up to standard and for the last three years we’ve been really focusing on optimising what we’ve got.”
The Works has been adapting its product range to become a destination for families with a clear emphasis on board games, arts and crafts, books and toys as opposed to its previous assortment of stationery and relatively random categories.
“We used to describe ourselves as an Aladdin’s cave, where customers would come in and a lot of our stores were centred around ‘what will you discover?’
“But we shouldn’t be relying on our customers to discover things by themselves and we got rid of a lot of the novelty items. We then came up with ‘inspiring, reading, learning, creativity and play’ with a focus on families.”
Improving brand awareness
Stores make up 90% of The Works’ revenue with its website generating the remaining 10%.
Peck says the site should act as a shop window to the brand and it should be apparent that this is a retailer with over 525 UK and Ireland stores. But there is still a lot to do in terms of raising the brand’s profile.
“The way we attract new customers will be through social media, whether that’s Facebook or TikTok, as well as emails and pay-per-click advertising.
“We might trial some radio advertising, but word of mouth helps massively. We also released our Christmas campaign recently on video on demand and that was our first foray into it.
“Mainstream television is probably still outside of where we’d like to spend but for now, the focus is on being clear about the brand, the family aspect, value and accessibility.”
Peck says The Works already has a “loyal fan base”, which has been grown by the launch of a loyalty scheme, but he agrees there are still too many people who aren’t aware of the retailer and what it offers.
This is one of the reasons why The Works has embarked on its store transformation project. Its own research found that one of the biggest deterrents for customers going into a store is if the shop floor is messy and uninviting.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, Peck says it will keep enhancing its offering, investing in improvements to click and collect and enable customers to check stock levels at their local store.
Christmas always comes
While Peck has more than half an eye on next year, he’s still aware of just how important having a strong golden quarter is for a business like The Works.
“Christmas is the biggest time for us as more than a quarter of our sales are made in November and December. But it has been slower and I think everyone has been saying that Christmas is coming later and later every year.
“In the last 12 months, every single seasonal event such as Halloween and back-to-school has seen people leaving it quite late to purchase.
“We’ve got about three-and-a-half big weeks ahead of us now. People might spend a little bit less but they still spend on the kids and we couldn’t be better placed.”
In recent weeks, the retailer has seen sales increase on its ‘2 for £12’ offers, as well as on board games such as Unicorn Operation and staples like Guinness World Records.
Peck understands that consumers are still cautious but he believes trading will get stronger as December goes on. He says many The Works customers will be making their Christmas purchases later in the month to coincide with payday.
“Christmas is on a Monday this year, so the weekend prior to that will be super busy,” he says.
“It will be close between the 16th and 23rd of December, but I think the 23rd could be our busiest day of the year.
“It does make it hard as a retailer when trying to plan the stock levels for the weekend before Christmas but we will be there, ready and welcoming.”
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