Retailer Spotlight: How Zenith Mobility is thriving in the North East
Zenith Mobility emerged in Hartlepool in 2003 and has grown into a well-established business throughout the north east. In May 2021 Owner and Manager Stephen Parkes opened a new showroom in Sunderland, Southwick…
Zenith Mobility is a small family owned and run retailer with over 17 years experience in the mobility products market. Based in the seaside town of Hartlepool in County Durham Zenith Mobility supplies mobility products all over the UK but predominantly in the north east.
Stephen Parkes, the owner and manager of Zenith Mobility, controls the day-to-day running of the store as well as managing other services that the store provides its customers, such as installing and maintaining stairlifts, and a workshop where for the repairing and maintenance of mobility scooters.
Explaining how the business came to be established Stephen explains: “Zenith Mobility was founded in 2003 by myself and my father with the intention to provide our town of Hartlepool with mobility aids, including stairlifts and mobility scooters.
“Within a year of opening we moved into selling all mobility aids for independent living and outgrew our little shop in York Road so we moved into a bigger shop in Avenue Road and have been here ever since.”
Coming from a hospitality background where he was involved with running pubs and nightclubs Stephen had a good sense for customer service. His father, meanwhile, came from an engineering background, so the two found that combining their skills in these areas has really helped them to thrive within the mobility industry.
Most importantly there was no mobility shop in Hartlepool at the time so they had seen a gap in the market to provide this service. The father-and-son team set about extending their knowledge as much as possible about their products.
Stephen continues: “We undertook a number of training courses with our suppliers to get a better understanding of the products we where selling. It was also important to us they we were not only able to sell the products but be able to maintain and repair and carry out any servicing requirements as well.”
Since first opening its doors Zenith Mobility has built a reputation for honesty, fair prices and dealing well with its customers over any concerns or problems that they may encounter.
It has been this attention to excellent customer service that has certainly served them well over the years, as Stephen explains. “This really does go down with our customers as we now have over 20 years experience in not only selling all our mobility products but in repairing everything from a stairlift or mobility scooter, to a wheelchair or a walker.
We have a large workshop ready as well to help our customers with whatever the problem or fault may be with their product.
Expanding with a new store
In early 2020 Stephen and his father started looking at the possibility of opening a second shop with in the north east. At the time, Stephen says, a close friend within the mobility industry was looking to join the Zenith Mobility team and they decided to form a new partnership and get to work looking for an ideal location for a new shop.
The shop they were looking for needed to have all the facilities as their current shop in Hartlepool, with customer parking close by and proximity to a major supermarket and a town centre with the potential for passing trade that these bring.
Stephen says that they found what they wanted in Southwick, a suburb of Sunderland, completely by chance. “We were going to look at another shop and drove into Southwick and spotted the ideal shop and location which ticked all the boxes for us, and more.”
The plan was to keep to the same formula as the Hartlepool store. Says Stephen: “We kept the format of both shops identical to start with, stocking much of the same items such as mobility scooters, wheelchairs and independent living aids as we were not sure what would be the bestsellers.”
Over the past year, and perhaps not surprisingly, the mobility scooters, stairlifts, wheelchairs and walkers have all been selling really well at the Sunderland store.
Both stores also stock riser recliners in a variety of fabrics and a range of wide fitting shoes. Some new products have also found their way into the store, including the eFoldi Lite folding travel scooter, which folds and unfolds in a few seconds and is easy to store and transport, so the business is looking forward to seeing how the sales go with this.
It has also found that the new auto fold Elite full suspension self folding scooter from Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare has had the ‘wow’ factor with customers.
In November 2021, the business made the most of the popular tourist locations of it store by offering mobility scooters to hire on the seafront of Seaburn, Sunderland, and from hotels in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.
The business has also been promoting itself as the sponsor for the Seaton Titans boys football team.
Looking ahead
There have been challenges with the Covid pandemic over the last couple of years forcing them to change how they ran their business.
Stephen says: “Covid has has effected our business and, at first, we had to close our doors as did many other companies, however we never closed our contact with our customers.
“We diverted our phone lines to go directly to us so that were able to support our customers 24/7, especially in regard to stairlifts or mobility scooters breaking down. We also gave our customers advice or help in any way we could all while keeping
within the guidelines set by the UK government.”
Reopening the stores properly felt good, he says. “When we reopened we can honestly say we were ran off our feet! The amount of scooters sold was incredible. We feel that people wanted their freedom back, so if they were undecided before the Covid pandemic happened, then they were certainly more decided by the time restrictions were finally lifted.”
With business thriving Stephen is currently looking to open a third shop in 2023 and is considering a number of new locations within the north east area.
