An army may march on its belly, but Affordable Granite is more reliant on its vans. With a single exception, our vans over the years have been Renault Masters, and they have done very well for us. Although our range of operations has been reduced somewhat, each van still does in excess of 50 000 miles each year, and with our high payloads they take quite a battering. As a result, it doesn’t seem long since we last had photos of a new one. Each van has to be prepared for its service with us. The interior is kitted out with marine plywood for the worktop attachment points, and the outside is suitably liveried up with our logo, basic information and a few images of our product. This latest acquisition is a little different – the first van to be decked out with our new logo. We hope to redo the livery of our existing fleet to bring them into line with the new vehicle. Almost every week we receive an enquiry from someone whose first contact with us was through seeing one of our vans on the road. Keeping them looking good – a mobile advert for the company – is important.
There are several reasons for the reduction in the area in which we work. At one level, simple growth in the granite worktop market, with more and more households having solid stone in their kitchens: despite our growth, company capacity is obviously finite, and with more and more people looking for our product, it makes sense to prioritise installations that are reasonably close to us. In addition, with most of our customers coming to us via online search engine, the tendency of Google and others to be aware of searchers’ whereabouts and to look locally first has drastically altered the pattern of enquiries that come to us. Relatively few now come from further afield – when they do it is often because a potential customer has searched for a particular stone or feature which we have highlighted on the website in some way. The result is that our sales have become more concentrated by area – we are constantly in the main local centres – Redhill, Reigate, Horley, Crawley, Dorking and out along the Surrey Hills to Leatherhead and Guildford, up to Middlesex and West and South London, down into Sussex with Haywards Heath, Hove and Brighton, Kent for Sevenoaks, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells. Even central and North London are now more exception than rule. However, we still travel to large areas of Essex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and even Wiltshire at no additional charge.
Photos by Andrew King Photography
Vehicle signwriting by Harlequin Signs
