Archery customer hits target with larger unit

A traditional archery specialist has doubled the size of its shop by taking on a second Bizspace unit.

The Longbow Shop, at our Price Street Business Centre,  in Birkenhead, has proved so popular with customers since opening two years ago that their existing unit just wasn’t big enough. So the business has knocked through into the unit next door to give the shop double the amount of space.

The store had been closed for two weeks while the building work was carried out, although you can buy archery equipment from their online shop, which ships items all over the world, has been operating as normal. On Saturday the new and improved Longbow Shop opened its doors to customers.

Graham Higgs, one of the company’s three directors, says the larger shop includes a shooting range for people to try out bows and arrows before buying. It will now also run beginner’s archery courses for people wanting to try out the sport.

Needed more space

He says: “We had outgrown our original unit and there was no room for stock and no room to work. Now we have had walls taken down and then a complete refit. It has been a big job but it’s very exciting for us.”

Archery enthusiast and fellow company director Jason Powell launched the company around seven years ago as a start-up mail order firm selling traditional archery equipment. Then Graham and a third director, Mike O’Sullivan, joined the business when it opened the shop at Price Street Business Centre in June 2011.

Graham says: “The web is very good, but we wanted to put a face to the company. A lot of our customers like the personal touch and it is the sort of product you need to try physically.”

He says the business began because many archery stores in the UK focus on selling equipment for competition with bows made of steel or aluminium rather than the traditional wooden ones.

“We are all traditional archers and we found it difficult to get what we wanted from other shops, so we opened our own,” he explains.

“We wanted to give our customers a massive range of traditional equipment.”

Affordable terms and convenient location

Graham explains that they chose Price Street Business Centre when looking for commercial premises, because of its convenient location and because Bizspace offer flexible and affordable accommodation for start-up businesses.

He says: “We needed a unit which would fit our budget. We didn’t have a lot of cash and the costings from Bizspace were very favourable.”

And the location has proved such a success that when the business needed more space, the directors decided to stay at the centre and expand rather than moving elsewhere.

Price Street Business Centre has excellent transport links and is just minutes away from the M53 and Birkenhead Park rail station. It contains 55 units, including workshops, industrial units, offices and meeting rooms.

All the units can be accessed round-the-clock and facilities include free parking, a cafe, pool hall and a gym.