This week we want to share one of our favourite sources with you.
Over the years a practice like ours builds up contacts with craftspeople and suppliers on which we rely for quality and value. These range from joiners and contractors to furniture and accessory suppliers and on the whole we like to keep our sources close to our chest, sharing them with our clients.
Sometimes, however, a secret is too good to keep to ourselves and, as a reader of our blog, you are really Falchi-family so, allow us to introduce you to Urbansuite, a retail outlet in Windsor, which is also very close to our studio.
Urbansuite Windsor, established in 1999, is the founding branch of a group of four stores with branches in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. It stocks over 50 different brands from Italy, Europe and, currently most popular, Scandinavia. On our last visit, we had a chat with the owner who is part of the four-strong team on the shop floor and does all the buying. What’s his formula?
“I choose things that I like, after this many years in the business you find a sense of what will sell, but it has to be affordable too. I try to have something for everybody. My big ticket item is sofas,” he tells us.
The team definitely enjoys interaction with customers.
“Sometimes people come into the shop and ask for advice. They have a certain look in mind. Once we have an idea of what they want or need, we bridge the gap with what is available. I tell my staff never to push a sale. We offer a 7-day money back guarantee if a customer is not happy. This occurs maybe two to three times a year.”
“The majority of customers purchase from the shop floor, but occasionally we get someone coming in who has been thinking about a purchase for five years and asks whether we can find it for them. We always do our best.”
Urbansuite remained open throughout the pandemic: have things changed since?
“During Covid people were spending more time at home and so they were changing what they had. But other issues are affecting trade now, people are feeling the pinch and we are seeing less of those who live just around the corner and more of big interior design led projects.”
So, it would seem our secret source is not such a secret anymore….
