Derby House restructures

Derby House has a new managing director. Nigel Cliffe joined the equestrian equipment business in May from Mothercare, where he was marketing director. His arrival is part of a wider restructuring at the firm, which will see it close seven of its eight stores in order to focus on its web and catalogue business.

“The portfolio of stores doesn’t fit our trading model going forward,” says Cliffe. He wants Derby House’s remaining flagship store to become more experiential and plans to hold events at the store’s grounds with the aim that the store becomes more than just a place to buy equestrian goods—it becomes a family day out. He also hopes to turn it into a centre of equestrian excellence, something “you can’t do with a high street store”.

Cliffe says he was brought in to manage Derby House because of his retail background, and says that closing its shops is not counterintuitive to that. “Derby House is still a retail business, but the channels have changed.” Cliffe says he’s working to improve the catalogue and website and add more products to the range, a process he calls “integrating flicks, clicks and bricks”.

As part of that integration, the Derby House catalogue has been given a revamp; it’s smaller and will now be supported by targeted minicatalogues during the year.
Even just in the first few weeks of the restructuring, Cliffe has seen trading improvements, “the business has come through a difficult trading period but the new strategy is starting to show green shoots,” he says.

Sales in the stores, web and catalogue are up, says Cliffe, ahead of expectations and significantly ahead of last year, though he declined to disclose specifics.