40 years at Gerry’s
This year 2020 will be the 40th year Gerry’s has been trading and this is a brief history of how we got from there to where we are today. There’s been so ups and downs like all journeys but generally we have overcome the problems to arrive at where we are today
The beginning.
If you didn’t know Gerry is a Londoner and had never been north of Watford but after meeting his wife, Barbara, her stepfather suggested that we move to join them in Morecambe and things went from there. Gerry needed to find a job and onething he could do and had a passion for was fishing.
The first store was 25ft x 12ft and things went from strength to strength with Gerry realising he could sell anything to anyone and loved talking about fishing every day.
The second shop.
So the business grew and grew and soon out grew the first shop and a bigger shop was needed. Gerry spotted a new building down the road but it was 6 times bigger. He decided to take the plunge. The new shop had a back door to the promenade and an office few across Morecambe bay.
The ‘lifer’ joined
We started employing people, and some of them are still with us today, Darren Breen is now Gerry’s retail shop manager and has been with since he started aged 17 after pestering Gerry every day with “ give us a job Mr Gerry”. He was and still is mad keen on fishing and has a wide skill set on all disciplines of angling. He has been a loyal employee and a good friend to Gerry and many other staff over the years.
Mail Order Began.
Maybe around 5 years in, trade was good but Gerry wanted more. He decided to branch out into mail order sales. A quarter page was booked and the business grew year upon year and in some years we even had 12 pages of adverts in sea angler magazine.
Shop 3
Mail order growing and growing we decide to take a 20 year lease on a shop that was approx 6000 square feet, astraddle 2 streets and 3 floors. It would allow us to hold more stock and offer a much more extensive range of tackle that could be displayed properly. This shop proved to be a great spot as we continued to expand in all areas of fishing. 3 floors always kept everyone fit and healthy.
2002 we launched the website.
Its easy to look back and say having a website is vital for any business but 20 years ago it was a great expense to take the business online as well as the nightmare to run. Year on year it proved to be more successful in telling customers who we are as well as to make tackle easier to get hold of for people who couldn’t visit the store.
Chris Joins the team.
Gerry’s son, Chris joined the team at around the age of 13 working the weekends starting with filling reels, cleaning up and getting an understanding of the business, bottom to top. In 2013 Chris took over the running of the business. New and fresh ideas were needed to bring the business forward and Gerry had earned himself a bit of a rest after 30+ years of long weeks.
Shop 4. – Our superstore.
It was time to expand the store size and presence. Our 3th store had been great but customer demand wanted a bigger store with everything displayed properly. We had also run out of room and wanted the full display on one floor.
I property came on the market 100 yards from our current location and at 12000sqft was huge but perfect.
We gambled and took it on and doing so opened the largest tackle store in the North West of England and the 5th biggest in the country.
We are now in our 6th year (2021) in this store and growing from strength to strength both in the shop and online where you can purchase from us on our website, eBay and Amazon along with being kept up to date via our social media pages on facebook, Intagram, Twitter and Youtube.
We as a team could not of got to where we are without fantastic staff as well as our amazing, loyal customer base. It is only with you that we can offer what we do.
Hopefully we are still here in another 40 years.