Dear furniture brand

An open letter from Adele Hornsby, Account Manager at PPL, to the brands whose furniture is sold by other people.

Dear furniture brand,

I’ve never designed a sofa or crafted a kitchen island, but I know the hard work it takes to get a new range right. The frame, the fabric, the finish, the price point. Every bit matters.

And once you’re ready to unveil your carefully crafted new collection, the hard work doesn’t stop.

The next job is to brief your stockists, send out your eye-catching point-of-sale material and explain to the sales teams what makes it all so special.

So, you’re all set.

Then, with great fanfare, your new range finally goes on display in pride of place in a showroom at the other end of the country from where you operate.

Realistically, you’ll never visit it, so it’s a bit of an unknown from this point on; you just have to hope a customer falls in love with what you’ve created and can’t wait to see it in their own home.

All’s going well, then the customer asks the sales team, 'Can I spread the cost?'

Suddenly, the showroom a few hundred miles away may as well be on a different planet; you’ve got zero control over what happens next. 

That’s beyond frustrating. That’s why I wanted to tackle this subject head-on and share my insight.

As an Account Manager at PPL, I spend a good chunk of my time working with businesses after their finance has gone live. That’s when I get to see first-hand what a well-run finance offer can do for a product. I also get to see how often the brands behind those products are left out of the conversation entirely.

By seeing the challenges from different angles, I feel there’s a bigger conversation to be had with the furniture industry and how we can all help shift expectations.

Your range has brand guidelines, display standards and product training. Finance usually has none of those. Each stockist decides for itself whether to offer it, which products to offer, how to word it and how to train its staff.

For a considered purchase like a sofa, a bed or a dining set, that conversation can matter as much as anything that’s discussed on the shop floor. Yet it's often the one part of the sale you have no part in.

Most brands think of their support for stockists exclusively in terms of products, marketing and margin, but in reality, finance can sit comfortably alongside them.

Imagine being able to say to an independent retailer: 'If you'd like to offer finance on our range, there's a straightforward way to get set up, with approved wording and training already in place.'

For a smaller stockist, that could remove one of their perceived stumbling blocks that always made them reluctant to offer any sort of finance. For a larger stockist, it could mean your range is always presented consistently wherever it's sold. And for you, it may mean more of your customers have a way to pay for your products that suits them.

I won't pretend all this can be implemented overnight, but I can tell you it’s time very well spent. Introducing a network approach can include a simple route for stockists to get set up with the right permissions, rather than each starting from scratch. It would mean agreeing on approved finance wording for your range that stockists can use with confidence. 

It’s about spending valuable time training everyone who talks to customers about finance on your products so they’re all selling from the same hymn sheet. It’s also about having a clear, fair process for customers who are declined.

This is important to your stockists as they keep their own customers and make their own decisions. The thing that changes is that the finance becomes something you can actively help with, rather than something that happens out of sight. 

So how does this joint-up thinking look from the retailer’s point of view? We work closely with Bensons for Beds, one of our longest-standing Appointed Representatives, and Steve Adlington described the move to working under PPL like this:

'Bensons for Beds has been working with PPL since 2019, and they supported us through the recent restructuring of our business. Having previously held direct authorisation for our consumer credit activities, we were familiar with the FCA's regulatory requirements; however, moving to be an appointed representative of PPL has assisted us in achieving greater oversight and control whilst being able to focus on our business.'

At PPL, we support brands, manufacturers and distributors that want finance offered to a high standard right across their retail networks. We help stockists get set up with the right regulatory structure, including as Appointed Representatives of PPL where appropriate, and we can onboard them in groups rather than one at a time. 

Our team provides training, financial promotions review and oversight, and our Artemis platform keeps the processes and records in one place. As an FCA-authorised credit broker, we can also introduce stockists to lenders on our growing panel where that's appropriate.

Next time you launch a range, once you’ve briefed your stockists on the fabric, the finish and the price, it might be worth briefing them on finance too. If any of this has struck a chord, I'd be glad to talk.

Yours,
Adele Hornsby
Account Manager, PPL

Talk to PPL about finance across your network