Brighthouse Are Getting Better
08/07/2009 8:11
on: Economy Of Commerce, Enterprise, Shopping Scouts
Radio Rentals brings back shocking memories of mullets, Ford Escorts and series of The Sweeney on ailing television sets. Irrespective of this, one of its direct descendants BrightHouse is starting to claw back the place it lost on the high street through the rise of the likes of Currys, Dixons and Comet and the decline of the price of TVs.
BrightHouse was created out of Thorn-EMI, the owner of Radio Rentals, by Terra Firma, Guy Hands’s private equity group. It gained infamy for exorbitant APRs and expensive compulsory extra cover. Nowthe retailer is on the front foot, trying to clean up both its branches and its name as it embarks on a very ambitious growth programme. It plans to inaugurate 21 shops next year and estimates that there is room for at least 600.
Only twelve of BrightHouse one hundred and seventy eight shops are in within the M25, but, as Leo McKee, the sincere chief executive of the outlet, enjoys saying the high street turns into a very different place beyond the M25.
Its prospects, almost solely from the lower socioeconomic segments are having problems to get credit - if they ever could - as lenders cut their risk profiles.
“We are working on areas that [Lloyds] TSB are pulling out of,” Mr McKee said. The idea of BrightHouse stepping in to deliver credit to our poorest communities will not satisfy everyone. Nevertheless the Scot believes that this is an invalid perception.
“When I “began my time at Brighthouse [in 2004], we “requested a “third party “study to examine “the proposition asking: ‘Is it sufficient?’ and: ‘Does it have longevity?’ he said.
“The results came back: your name on the high street is garbage; you’re seen as a rip-off merchant; the prices were high, the stores shabby.
“The first decision I made was to change all the prices to match the high street, on the day I found out [the results].”
The old thinking was that as far as customers could afford the payments, they would not care about the total price. And this thinking had knock-on effects right through the business.
That is what Brighthouse are now trying to sort out so their image improves amongst the general public.
