The Weird and Wonderful World of Febland

Blackpool Gazette

We take a tour of Blackpool's unique furniture group as the company prepares for a huge warehouse sale on September 12.

Transcript

00:00I can produce some wonderful, safe, neutral product, but oh my lord, it's boring, isn't it?

00:23There's no rules anymore. We're finding that customers are coming in and they're going,

00:26I want something different. I don't want grey, I don't want brown, I don't want oak, I want things different.

00:35Simon Febland, back in the 50s, was a real entrepreneur, really massively ahead of his time.

00:42So he was going over to Italy and going to these little factories and bringing that,

00:46these beautiful little pieces of porcelain, and he was actually ordering, he got to the point where

00:50he was going to the factory and ordering these beautiful little vases and trinkets, ordering

00:53pallets of them and getting them shipped to South Shore, to the train station, and then going to

00:58the markets and then going to traders and selling them. So he was actually become a wholesaler back

01:02in the 50s when it wasn't fashionable. So yeah, that was Simon Febland, he was the founder of the

01:07company. And since then, it's just, it's thrived and thrived and thrived, moved forward from Italian

01:11products, Italian furniture. Then about 20 years ago, we sort of went more into the Chinese market.

01:16So the Chinese market became really prominent and we started importing containers. And probably that

01:20really put us where we are today on the map and with modern furniture.

01:26I seem to see a change about every 10 years. So every 10 years, you see to get a new product range

01:31and a new market, you find a gap in the market and it moves forward and you fill that niche,

01:37but eventually it changes and you've got to almost reinvent yourself. I find it's every 10 years,

01:41you have to reinvent yourself. If you don't, you're left behind.

01:44We do these trade shows and everybody comes on and goes, oh, it's Feblons, it's always brash. But

01:49then you say, well, hang on a minute, what's your shop window like? And they go, well, it's this and

01:53that. I go, okay, well, imagine taking that one piece, putting that one crass piece, putting it in

01:58your window. Everybody's going to stop. Everybody's going to come past your shop window and go, oh my

02:02giddy, what are they doing? That brashness, that blackpool exuberance really works. So we can get a lot

02:07of our product into shop windows and it really works. And of course, the benefit of us is as well, a lot of it

02:11does sell really well. It sells well too. So that's a bit of a bonus.

02:17There's definitely been a real shift. I think people's attitudes have changed over the last

02:21four or five years. But what we're finding is people's attitudes have changed. I think during

02:24COVID, it's a very valid point that it did change people's opinions and they put man caves in,

02:30sheds in, they did the houses up. They spent a lot of money. Most of us, all of us, I think,

02:34spent time and money doing up our properties and houses and homes. And I think that sort of has been

02:38done. And I think there'll be a period of time where it slackens off before people then going,

02:42okay, I'm ready for a new carpet. I'm ready for a new this. I think that period's coming.

02:46What's important has changed. And I think they've realized that family is probably the most important

02:50thing.

02:53It's a quirky showroom. And I think you come in most showrooms and it's just, well, you can,

02:58you can order that sofa in a brown leather or a gray leather. It's four to six weeks and it gets

03:02delivered, but you can't do anything really specific. Whereas we can, and that's probably our niche.

03:06Yeah. It makes it a little bit quirky as a showroom.

03:11We've accumulated a lot of stuff over the last 40 years. So we're going to clear it out

03:14September the 12th at nine o'clock. We're having a massive clearance sale over the road. So the

03:20clearance house, which most people have been aware of for the past 35, 40 years, is going.

03:24Everything's got to go and we're going to have a fresh start. Factory stays, showroom stays.

03:29This is the heart of the home, but things change, things move on. We've got to change and adapt to

03:34survive. Yeah. A hundred percent.

03:49We like to say Febland's the friendliest place in the whole wide world. That's our motto. We like to be

03:54friendly. We like to look after people. They're going to get their ears chewed because we like to

03:57chat, as you can probably tell. So yeah, they're going to get looked after.

04:00It's absolutely fantastic. I'm biased, but that's my opinion.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended