Stephen Williams swapped the hectic life of being a director with the Walt Disney company to run his own pet and animal feed centre with wife Jo, and it's paying off in a big way. As well as enjoying a more acceptable lifestyle, his business is growing rapidly and basking in the glory of being crowned Retailer of the Year.

This week Stephen reveals to Pet Trade Xtra how he and Jo have turned Poole Farm Feed Centre in Great Yeldham, Essex into an award-winning business.

How did you become involved with Poole Farm Feed Centre?
We bought the business and farmhouse at Poole Farm back in October 2009. It was previously owned and launched by Jo’s parents about 20 years ago. They retired and moved into a cottage (also at Poole Farm). Prior to moving to here myself and Jo lived in Bishops Stortford with two of our children Scarlett (now aged nine) and Evie (now aged seven) – we now have a third! I worked for Walt Disney as Finance & Operations Director for their video games business and Jo was a housewife, having previously been Head of Brand at a telecoms company.

How many people now work in the business?
We currently have nine employees – we started with five.

Is most of your business done in store?
About 98% of our business is done in store with the rest online via ebay and our own website (launched this year). Online sales have grown from zero when we started and are increasing all the time. We are currently populating our informational/transactional website with products (www.poolefarm.co.uk) as quickly as we can as we realise online is a potential growth channel for us. We currently get about 2,000 page views a month. The internet overall is very important to us. As well as ebay and our website we regularly use facebook, twitter, streetlife and other social media to promote ourselves, our products and our services. We also send out monthly digital mailshots to our customers/potential customers.

Do you attract customers from a wide area?
The majority of our in-store customers live within a 25 mile radius (so fairly wide). However customers that come to buy our point of lay chickens will travel up to a couple of hours to visit us. With our online presence we reach customers mainly across the UK but do have some as far away as Europe.

What percentage are pet product sales in your business compared to horse and animal feeds?
Pet product sales (including live chickens/chicken feed) account for about 60% of our business and tend to be more steady throughout the year. Horse and animal feeds tend to be more seasonal, being more concentrated in the winter months.

What challenges face an independent business like yours?
A number of challenges face our business:

• Competition from other independents (we have quite a few within a close geographical radius).
• Price competition from the big supermarkets and mass online retailers (eg. Amazon).
• Maintaining reasons for customers to come and visit rather than simply purchasing on-line eg. because of expert advice, product availability, loyalty, pleasure of shopping experience.
• Supplier support for the independent pet trade – we have seen a number of suppliers change their stance on supporting the independent pet trade over the years.

What are your plans for the future?
We are always looking for the next opportunity as well as to give our customers/prospective customers additional reasons to come and visit us.
Currently in our thoughts are a coffee shop, petting farm, on site grooming and veterinary services. More stores and franchising could be a possibility – watch this space.

Pictured above: Stephen and Jo receive their Pet Industry Retailer of the Year award from guest of honour Frank Bruno.


For more information visit www.poolefarm.co.uk