This summer, Whitemeadow announced the appointment of Nichola Bell to lead sales on its newly acquired Westbridge brand. As the brand’s former custodian, Nichola is relishing the chance to write its next chapter, she tells Furniture News …
How does it feel to be back representing Westbridge?
Brilliant, to be honest! At first, I thought it would take me a while to get my head back into all things Westbridge, but in fact it felt like I’d entered a TARDIS, and I was back on it in no time!
It’s difficult to explain, but I feel rather proud to be back at the helm, having been there from day one of the original business back in 2010, and now being here for its revival … it’s quite exhilarating!
The energy and enthusiasm that the team have for this revival is contagious. It’s not been an easy task, and they’ve done an incredible job, enabling Westbridge retailers to continue trading and retain as many orders as they could at the beginning.
As sales director, I feel like a custodian of a (trade) brand that gave myself and many others many happy years in our industry, and I relish the challenge to make it something special. Like they say, ‘experience never goes out of style.’
What have you been doing behind the scenes since you joined?
The beauty of a revival is ensuring that you take the best bits forward and leave the not-so-good bits behind. In essence, it’s starting a new business from scratch, and anyone who’s done this before is aware of the work that’s needed.
Some of the smallest details (that largely go unnoticed) such as branding, imagery, internal documentation and systems, can take the most time, but are important in building strong foundations. It’s not enough just to rely on excellent product – the customer support tools need to be in place to ensure that all our customers can hit the ground running with the support they deserve.
Westbridge will be a standalone business within the Whitemeadow Group, with its own dedicated factory and support staff. My next challenge is to recruit a dynamic and energetic field sales team to look after our customers at ground level.
We’re also working on a new interactive website, giving customers the ability to track their orders, download their PoS, and even place orders directly on our internal system.
It’s all about making working with Westbridge easy and instant, taking away as much unnecessary admin as possible for our customers. There’s plenty to keep me busy right now, and it’s all super exciting!
What can we expect to see from the new Westbridge?
As the ‘new’ Westbridge will officially launch at next year’s January Furniture Show, we’re working incessantly to create our signature look. We’ll have a dedicated Westbridge stand in a new location in Hall 1, where there’ll be a lovely mix of both heritage products and new ones (sometimes you just have to have the old favourites there, don’t you?!).
Obviously, I’m not going to give too much away at this stage (or else what would be the point of our big reveal?).
I feel it’s important to retain the core DNA of Westbridge – comfort, value and excellent fabrics – whilst also injecting a fresh feel and taking a new direction.
There are some fantastic new looks coming to the market, and I’ve been exploring the use of colour, pattern and texture in a way that’s fresh and exciting, but also commercial.
We are acutely aware that consumers are now more ‘trend savvy’ than ever, and that these trends are often difficult to achieve on every shop floor. Westbridge looks to help our independent retailers recreate the current trends in an understandable and commercial way.
Our industry (and indeed, the country) has not had an easy time over the last 12 months, with many changes occurring, but I genuinely believe that the latter part of the year will see more consumer confidence and a desire for newness, so our January launch is perfectly timed.
In the meantime, we’ve delivered over 100 new displays of the first four models in production – Henley, Peyton, Lacey and Eden. The lovely Keaton is on the bench as we speak, and looking amazing. These heritage models are firm favourites, and have a new curated swatch for this interim period.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the customers who have purchased these models and supported us during this interim period. I look forward to working with you all again, and officially welcoming you to Westbridge in January at the JFS!
