So niche, so stylish
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Words by Jamie Crocker
In a world led by conventional uniformity, it’s refreshing to come across a company that is bucking that trend.
When it comes to window dressing, there is a certain conservatism that often stifles originality. For generations in the UK, curtains have remained the default choice, more through habit than necessity. Yet there are alternatives that offer a more practical and versatile solution, providing privacy after dark while allowing far greater control over the light entering a room during the day, along with other benefits that outperform the traditional competition. Just Shutters are the facilitators of such an alternative. Andrew Cook expands upon the reasons why and how the company goes about its business.
Just Shutters positions itself as a specialist rather than “a curtain or blind company that fits shutters on the side”. In a market where many competitors diversify, has that single-minded focus ever been a commercial risk, particularly during quieter periods?
No, as there is a lot more to designing and fitting shutters than to curtains or blinds. Different-sized windows, window locations, and exterior views, along with interior design styles, will all require their own approach. And that’s where being a specialist becomes the strength. We fit all our own shutters and are trained expert fitters. Shutters are not the cheapest of window coverings and offer great thermal benefits and interior design strengths along with great kerb appeal. These features can all be lost due to the incorrect design or a poor-quality installation.
Your approach centres on “no pressure, no hidden costs” and a complimentary home design visit. In an industry sometimes criticised for hard selling, what have you consciously rejected in the traditional sales playbook?
We don’t approach our customers with a hard sell. We offer a free design appointment where we talk to them about their needs and what they would like to achieve by having shutters, and above all, we listen. By listening, we can suggest the correct design style for the shutters combined with the correct functionality. By offering the best solution backed up by our expert fitting from an established local family company, we ignore all the other hard-sell tactics that are employed by the big national companies who offer misleading deals such as ‘3 for the price of 2’, ‘buy one get one free’ or ‘over 50% off’.
Plantation shutters are described as one of the fastest-growing window coverings in the UK. Do you think their rise is driven more by genuine functional benefit or by shifting interior design trends and aspirational living?
It’s both really. With the changing climate, we see a lot of customers opting for shutters to keep the house cool in the hotter summers that we are experiencing. And during colder times, they have great thermal properties, offering increased insulation, which all helps with the current energy costs. There has been a huge shift in design trends away from conventional blinds and curtains towards shutters. They can blend into any interior design style, be it modern, contemporary or traditional. There is no other window covering product that offers the benefits and functionality of shutters along with the desired aspirational living aspect. Shutters are an incredibly stylish window covering that offer the ability to control the ambient light in the room, as well as having added privacy and security benefits that are popular with second home and holiday home owners.
Having built a strong reputation locally since 2011, how do you maintain that “local expert” feel within a wider national network? Does scale ever threaten the personal touch that underpinsyour success?
Just Shutters has a great network of franchisees, but at the core, we are all independent owners of our own businesses, and we all maintain the same high standards and expert levels of installations. We find customers do move around the country and have friends and family located in different areas of the country, so we do benefit from a very high level of recommendations and referrals across our network. This is our main area of sales, as customers like to have someone they can trust, who is reliable and has confidence that they will carry out a great job. Nothing beats great customer recommendations and referrals, which are also backed up by our five-star customer reviews. I have owned and run the Just Shutters franchise for Cornwall and Devon for the past 15 years, and it’s great being part of a larger network, but essentially, we are a local family company based in Cornwall that offers a great shutter product and a great service covering the whole of the South West.
