82 Posh pooches Margaux’s is a high end dog store in the market town of Hertford. Offering the best of British brands, Founder Sam Levy tells more about the store’s opening and cult following Tell us a bit about your store and how you came to open the business. My sister and I bought the building with a view to opening an Australian style café but the building was in a terrible state of disrepair and needed completely rebuilding. This was extremely challenging and took a lot more time than expected. During the build we had Brexit and the Covid pandemic and this led us to rethink our plans. We decided to open a dog store because we were inspired by a dog store in Suffolk that had just opened. We have had dogs all our lives and wanting better quality items than you find locally, we often bought things from London stores or Germany (pre Brexit) so after lots of research we made the decision. Is the location important to the success of your store? Hertford is a super dog friendly town and it’s in a fairly affluent area with good road and rail links to the surrounding areas, which obviously helps hugely. What challenges were overcome when the company was starting out? Neither my sister or I have any experience in retail so that was the biggest challenge to be honest, it’s a lot harder than we expected. What is your customer base? We have an extremely varied customer base, which is lovely, from teenagers wanting to get their dog a treat right through to older customers. Or families with dogs and everyone in between, we like to think we have something for everyone. What’s your USP? Our USP is the fact that we exclusively stock our store with smaller British brands, artisans and makers and natural treats and grooming products. We have some fabulous brands and we think that it’s very important to showcase them. We’re all about quality, sustainability and supporting the UK over mass produced items that are often very poor quality. What are your current bestselling lines? Storeys and Tails All Weather Collection of biothane and solid brass collars and leads, Stix dog coats, J R Pet Products Natural dog treats and Green & Wilds Treats and Eco Toys.
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