Images_Digital_Edition_June_2019

www.images-magazine.com 40 images JUNE 2019 IS DECORATOR PROFILE South East Workwear has bucked the trend by expanding its retail shop and seeing a 500% increase in footfall. Mark Ludmon went to Abingdon to see how Adrian Burton and his team have managed to succeed when so many high street shops are failing W hen I meet Adrian Burton in South East Workwear’s shiny new premises in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, he and his team are recovering after a manic few months. Since the start of this year they have expanded into a much bigger site including a stylish shop, invested in a new IT system and website, taken on more staff, and increased business. “We did it all together at the same time,” Adrian says. “I’m absolutely shattered at the moment.” The family-run firm is entering an exciting new phase after 25 years as a distributor of workwear. Adrian’s dad, Keith, who previously started out selling tools from a van, founded the firm in the mid-80s. His customers also asked him for workwear and safety gear and, by 1994, this demand far outstripped the tools sales, so South East Workwear was born. Adrian himself has been involved in decorating since 2002 when he started printing garments from his garage at home alongside his day job as an electrician. With financial support from his father-in-law Peter Jamieson, he switched to doing it full-time and invested in his first embroidery machine, taking on embroidery and garment printing that his dad had been outsourcing to other companies. In 2005, it made sense for father and son to join forces and they created the combined business as it is today. Support from Dickies Since the start, South East Workwear has been a distribution partner for workwear brand Dickies (or Clares Dickies, as it was still called back in 1994), supplying clothing, including footwear, for all kinds of jobs from builders and plumbers to grounds maintenance and hospitality. The new shop was made possible with financial support from Dickies, whose products take up much of the space alongside more recent additions to the portfolio, Helly Hansen and Scruffs. South East Workwear had a shop in the same building before, but much smaller and with the embroidery equipment out front rather than located at the back as it is now. “In our old shop, it was like a builders’ merchants, everything stacked up in boxes, still in Cellophane, but this has really changed everything,” Adrian says. “We are trying to make it more of a retail experience. It’s such a nicer way of presenting it.” They have found that the more premium look means they can ask a better price for workwear from retail customers. It also brings in orders for the embroidery side of the business, Adrian points out. “As there is no minimum order, we can say to sole traders, ‘Why not put your own logo on a polo shirt?’” Based for its first quarter century in old stables next door, the company is now all together within the neighbouring, more modern, Coxeters House. Its premises cover over 4,000 square feet, of which around 2,500 is retail and the rest production, compared to a total space of 1,900 square feet before. The workforce has grown from 12 to 16 over the past year, including a second sales person on the road alongside sales manager Matt Jones who has worked at the company for 10 years. Out back, they have an eight-head Tajima embroidery machine and two SWF machines – one six-head, the other a dual function six-head – giving them 20 heads altogether. The business added two Epson SureColor SC-F2000 DTG printers two years ago and a Mimaki CJV150-107 printer/cutter in October last year. “We have gradually expanded as we have grown and invested as we need newer equipment to keep up with the latest processes,” Adrian adds. Investment has also been in IT, including a new order-processing system that not only automatically keeps track of all orders, but also offers a password-protected portal for customers. “We had a private website portal before but this is really Skateboarders are part of South East Workwear’s new target market Retail revolution