Design4Retail based in Bitteswell, Lutterworth, has this month celebrated five years in business as one of the UK’s leading retail design specialists providing a design and installation service for point of sale, promotional displays, store interiors and ‘shop-in-shop’ environments for major UK brands.
In the last half a decade the business has seen steady growth beginning with an expert team of three it has quickly become a well established business that today employs 13 staff. So to share their success they celebrated their 5th anniversary at Leicester’s Café Bruxelles with clients, business partners and friends.
Design4Retail Director, Tim Howitt, explains why they decided to establish the company: “We decided that the time was right for the re-emergence of the small services focused design agency, our industry had seen a lot of consolidation and we felt that these larger companies had started to lose their design focus, while they chased ever bigger clients to fit their manufacturing capabilities.
“We also wanted to be more holistic in our approach so between the three directors that founded the business, Chris Baker, Jon Vinall and myself we could offer broad industry expertise that spanned not only point of purchase, but retail interiors and promotional work too. So we felt that we could provide something special to our clients, an approach that considers the complete retail journey. “
Since its inception business growth has been good, in the first three years Design4Retail doubled its revenue each year. At the end of the fourth year revenue had grown by another 50% and in its fifth year by another 20%. The business aims to grow by 25% this year without any extra head count despite today’s current business climate.
Their continued growth has enabled them to attract work from well known UK brands across many sectors including: cosmetics, footwear, outdoor clothing, professional hairdressing and finance; in fact one of their largest clients to date is the Alliance & Leicester where they were responsible for a major re-brand of their entire branch network. More recently they have worked with The Nationwide Building Society, Merrell, Goldwell, Clarins and Cushe®.
Tim Howitt, adds: “We have also found that being based in Leicestershire has provided both a wealth of design talent and a very skilled work base for specialist suppliers. Due to the very nature of our projects we don’t need large manufacturing runs, so we tend to use local suppliers that offer the best production and skills for our business needs. So the decision to site the business in rural Lutterworth has been a key ingredient in our success.”
