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Socal Playing to its Strengths in the Lpg Marine Industry

By Peter Spreadborough, marine & leisure sales manager, Southampton Calor Gas Centre Ltd

Since its formation in 1989, Southampton Calor Gas Centre Ltd (Socal) has always been conscious of the changing needs of its customers and the wider business environment. While the cylinder lpg business forms a large part of our company’s turnover, equipment sales have always provided a major source of revenue.

While most lp gas retailers just sell the staple equipment, such as cabinet heaters, hoses and regulators, Socal has invested heavily in equipment sales. It has a modern 4,000sq ft showroom that displays domestic cookers and heaters, gas barbecues and accessories, marine and leisure appliances, including refrigeration and marine cookers, and ancillary equipment.

Strengths

The growth of equipment and appliances sales is vital to the company’s success. The development of niche markets has been key to this. “Play to your local strengths,” says our sales director Charles Ramseyer, and we have a lot a yachts moored in and around Southampton, all requiring bits and bobs.

From the early days, Socal has always been involved in the marine industry. In 1990, the company took its first stand at the Southampton International Boat Show. With the collective expertise of the sales team at Socal, the company has built up a reputation for being the place to go for advice on marine lpg gas installations and equipment.

Equipment

I am a keen sailor myself so understand the requirements of my customers, and I have nearly 25 years’ experience within the lpg and leisure industry. Socal carries an extensive range of marine equipment, including boat cookers and lpg alarms, and has recently moved into providing spare parts for many of the major brands of marine cookers, such as Plastimo, Eno and Force 10.

Selling spare parts is proving to be very successful. It’s a niche within a niche, and we supply parts to customers all over the world.

Niche

The development of this niche market has been made possible by the use of the internet as a shop window to the world. Socal’s first website socal.co.uk was launched in 1999 and featured barbecues and accessories. It led to Socal jointly developing the CalorBBQshop and the CalorCaravanShop websites with Calor Gas Ltd.

Socal also developed the CalorMarineShop website and e-commence shop, which contains hundreds of pages with useful information regarding the use of lpg on boats, as well as a list of registered marine lp gas installers.

E-commerce

A year ago, Socal relaunched its socal.co.uk website to include a complete lpg equipment e-commerce shop. This has proved very successful and has dramatically increased the appliance turnover of the business.

The website is a constantly evolving entity. You can’t just publish it and leave it – we work daily on updating and improving it. We work to make sure every page and every product of our website appears on the front page of a Google search.

Research

In the past year or so, the use of broadband internet has changed the way customers research a major purchase. Currently, online sales count for over a third of Socal’s appliance turnover. However, the growth of the web as a research or reference tool should not be underestimated. It’s more common for a customer to ‘Google’ a product or business than use a printed-paper directory.

The use of services, such as Google local, is an invaluable tool. A good listing costs nothing; it just takes a little time and effort.

Socal is finding that a large number of customers are ‘window shopping’ online and then visiting the Southampton showroom armed with pages printed from the website. While the internet is a good source of information, there is still no substitute for a quality bricks and mortar showroom where trained, experienced and knowledgeable staff can provide a good service to the customer.

Contact Southampton Calor Gas Centre Ltd on 02380 788155 www.socal.co.uk