FRANCHISEBIZ recently partnered with Nolte Kitchens UK and had the opportunity to speak with Liz Hall, Retail & Franchise Director at Nolte Kitchens UK.
Hi Liz, great to meet you! Firstly, could you please give our readers an overview of Nolte Kitchens and what the brand is all about?
Nice to meet you too and I’d love to. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know much about German kitchens before I came here but was immediately impressed. I mean German kitchens & engineering? They think of everything! It really is a high-end premium product and the quality is amazing.
Nolte has been around since 1958, employs 1,300 people globally and exports to 60+ countries. Our products are 100% made in Germany so we’re a manufacturer and historically sold those kitchens only through our domestic B2B and export markets.
That model was hugely successful and then in the UK market we spotted an opportunity to do more within the market. So a few years ago Nolte Kitchens UK was set up and we acquired two existing kitchen companies – ‘the kitchen group’ and ‘Intoto’, which suddenly gave us new routes to market through a network of fantastic showrooms.
I joined to help advise how to grow and expand in the UK looking at all our retail spaces, developing our showrooms and focusing on scaling quickly.
Can you tell us about Nolte’s move into franchising?
It came about because we recognised there was huge potential as a franchising model. We already had 15 showrooms that were proven to work well commercially and we knew we could scale it, so in 2023 we developed that concept and last year we went out to offer our opportunity as a franchise.
We’ve put a lot of time and investment into proving the concept. This gives prospective franchisees lots of confidence in the opportunity and being able to share our existing sales results shows them its potential. Before we went out to market with our offer, we made sure we had a solid infrastructure and a profitable proof of concept in place.
This meant strengthening our franchise support functions including operations, warehousing, logistics, CRM, retail and marketing support, HR and finance. We can now essentially offer “a shop in a box”, ready for franchisees to pick up and run with.
Although the product is made in Germany, all of this infrastructure is UK based which is a big advantage for franchise partners.
Why did Nolte choose to work with the FRANCHISEBIZ team to help you grow?
We have a lot of experience and expertise within Nolte but as relative newcomers to the franchise world, we knew we needed to partner with franchise experts. Having worked personally with Alex Coombe (one of the FRANCHISEBIZ founders) I knew we needed to strengthen and improve our reach.
I have worked with Alex in the past when we crossed paths at BoConcept so I know how valuable his experience and expertise is in the franchising industry. I knew once we had a deliverable concept we needed to engage with FRANCHISEBIZ at some point to help with our expansion plans and tap into that specialist knowledge. That’s why we’re excited to be working together now!
Please tell us about any goals you may have hit so far, any particular challenges and your ambitions for the brand in 2025?
It’s going well. We have our first franchisee signed up already, with others close to signing and lots of other exciting conversations taking place with interested parties.
This year ideally we’d like to open 5 new showrooms with franchise partners. Ultimately we want 100+ locations, being a mix of owned locations and franchised showrooms. We want to have a couple of showroom concepts including a large out of town format around and a more compact in town version.
We’ll continue to grow the B2B network and will strategically fill in existing location gaps across the country so we don’t tread on other people’s toes.
What qualities do you particularly value in prospective franchise partners and what type of candidates are you searching for?
Our main priority is that they need to be present and hands-on in the business. They need to be accessible and work closely with our team of designers to look after customers and so we are excited to find the kind of hands-on investor who wants to be actively involved and who is passionate about the product.
They might have a background in property or architecture and ideally they would have an interest in interiors and home decor, though this isn’t essential. What is essential is having an entrepreneurial outlook and being knowledgeable about business.
Kitchens are an emotional purchasing process so they need to care about their customers and understand the importance of this, as much as knowing how to run a business. That might sound obvious but it’s really important!
What kind of franchise partners exactly are you looking for?
We are equally happy to talk to people interested in single or multi-site franchises, but ideally we are aiming for more multi-site owners. We have already identified UK locations of interest and they could open up initially in those locations, then open additional sites over time. The intention would be for them to open between five and ten stores over the next five years.
What advice would you give to prospective candidates who are considering becoming a Nolte Kitchens franchise partner?
We’re happy to talk to you to help you on your journey.
It’s surprising how many people come to us and start a conversation not knowing how franchising works, so I’d say if you’re interested, start there. Research how franchise models work in general. There’s lots of info out there and you need to understand it to check it’s right for you.
Talk to competitors or any other franchise businesses, regardless of product. Educate yourself on how this type of business is run and ask yourself “how can I positively impact this business model?”.
Then if you’re keen on Nolte, research the kitchen industry to understand how you can be effective selling kitchens. This might sound obvious but it is quite specialist and it really is the crux of the business. If you can’t do it yourself that’s fine, but you will need to find and recruit people who can.
It’s important to remember that the emotional side of buying a kitchen is huge. It’s hard to overstate how important this point is.
Things need to go right from start to finish because our customer is going to invest a lot of money and then live with their decisions in the kitchen every day.
Is there plenty of support for franchisees to help them along the way?
Oh absolutely! As well as having a premium product, the lead times are good which is always important to customers and our support systems are excellent.
We have a great ordering process team in Germany that supports us. We have a strong operations team in Wrexham, as well as aftersales for customers, so you can be assured we’ve put loads of work into this side of the business. Warehousing and logistics is a huge benefit to franchisees as it means the product is safe and looked after.
The marketing team we have is excellent and their sole purpose is to drive leads to the showroom. All their recent work has been about making the website engaging and fitted to the UK market and they’ve been working on this for over 18 months. Ultimately they ensure the kitchen designers get enough leads to make the business successful.
We also invest a lot on consumer led promotion to drive awareness. For example we attend big industry exhibitions like Ideal Home, The Homebuilding & Renovation show and Grand Designs.
What do you think makes Nolte especially attractive for franchisees?
There are a few things we’ve already talked about and one thing to remember is that we’ve only got 15 UK showrooms – that means there is a lot of opportunity to own other new available territories. Getting onboard in the early days is an advantage as it means you can secure your catchment and own a lucrative territory.
The proposition is really competitive commercially. The franchise fee funds the marketing pot, which is reinvested and focused on driving leads into their showrooms.
Franchise partners get all the infrastructure and support I mentioned earlier with CRM, marketing, operations, finance, HR, retail ops and logistics all providing solid support. These established teams make a big difference so franchisees can focus on building their business.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Nolte is a well-known brand within independent retailers, but now we’re also coming out in force more publically, investing in marketing so the brand is becoming much more visible. People are starting to see and recognise it more and more.
Franchise Partnership Opportunities
FRANCHISEBIZ support Nolte Kitchen UK with its franchise development by identifying new potential franchisees. To arrange an informal chat with our team about their opportunities, please contact us today.
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