The way forward for independent retailers?

By Chris Brooks

Northern Threads the store was founded in September 2006 by Nigel Binnie and Phil Goodfellow. Both have been in retail for over 20 years after seeing a gap in the market for a forward thinking independent menswear store in the North East. This summer the lad’s moved into online retailing with the launch of their transactional website nothernthreads.co.uk. Being that they are based in the North East MFN, popped round for a chat to speak to one of the founders, Phil Goodfellow, to tell us a little bit more and to see what they had planned for the future.

Q. So how did the website and online store come from idea to reality?

A. “We spent months in the research process, over 6 months in total browsing other retailers websites, looking at how you interact with them and how the product was displayed. Some were excellent, and you could clearly see a shopping experience was there to be had, but others, without saying any names, were truly awful. It was this hand’s on approach and working very closely with the website builders throughout the whole process, that we could achieve a site that makes you want to look around at the brands on offer but also be a very simple process to purchase items. It was (Nigel and myself) browsing hundreds of other sites previously that gave us an insight into how things should work.”

Q. Which brands or trends do you foresee being your biggest sellers online?

A. “we are expecting our biggest sellers in store to translate to the online sales too, Lyle and Scott, Junk de Luxe, One True Saxon and Diesel Denims, with the potential for smaller niche brands to increase from people specifically searching for them.”

Q. So is online the store part of a larger expansion program?

A “Hopefully, yes we are looking to increase our bricks and mortar store by around 30% around Christmas time, we would love to stock a wider range of product but are unable to display any new ranges properly at the moment, it would be nice to say yes to every brand who has offered us products, but currently we can’t do the clothing justice with limited space.”

Northern threads can be found at www.NorthernThreads.co.uk and stock, amongst others,Barracuta,Converse,Diesel,Duffer,Evisu Footwear,Fjall Raven,Fred Perry,G-Star,John Smedly,Lacoste,Levis,Nike,ONETrue Saxon,Penguin,Superdry

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