Pawn shops bucking the downward trend
Retailers may have suffered more than most in the current recession but Phil Vinter discovered that there’s one one high street fixture that is going from strength to strength.
In a dimly lit, dirty alleyway in an unsalubrious part of town a scruffy Fagin-type character sits behind thick iron bars licking his lips at the prospect of exploiting desperate folk who have fallen on hard times by giving them a few pounds for their expensive trinkets. . .
I’d never entered a pawnbrokers before, but that’s how I’d always imagined it would be. Dodgy, unsavoury, dangerous. One step up from a loan shark. Somewhere to avoid at all costs.
So it was with some trepidation that I approached Uncle’s pawnbrokers in Bordesley Green to find out more about this multimillion pound business. The first surprise was its location. Far from being a rundown side street in a part of town no one visits, I found myself by a busy roundabout, next to a main road by a row of shops.
I had expected the frontage to be a small barred window topped by dirty, peeling, gold-lettered writing. Instead I was greeted by bright green signage which screamed out the name and nature of the business. A large window displayed chains, bracelets and all manner of jewellery for sale.
Inside it had the feel of a bookies – sparsely decorated with a barred, glass-fronted counter at one end. Harrods it may not be, but retail is not the nature of this business.
Then the door opened. A customer. A woman in her early forties.
“Hello there,” she said as she entered.
“What can we do for you today?” Replied 55-year-old Simon Rider from behind the counter.
The woman pulled a bracelet from her pocket and asked how much they would give her for it?
Simon inspected it closely with a magnifying glass and said: “How much do you need?”
“I was hoping for 40 quid,” said the woman.
Mr Rider looked up from the jewellery towards the woman. “I’ll give you 50 if you like,”
“Great,” she said.
That I thought would be the end of the conversation, but to my surprise it wasn’t. Mr Rider and co-manager Sarah Davies then started chatting to the woman about her recent holiday to Turkey.
It turned out the woman, Mary Manning, had been using the shop for more than two decades to pawn items when she needed a few extra quid.
Ms Manning said: “It is convenient. If you know you have got the assets and you know you are going to get it back then it is better than selling it.
“I do think there are some dodgy people out there and I wouldn’t go anywhere else. I know the people here and I know they are fair and will try and work with you if you are struggling to pay them back in time. They don’t just sell your products as soon as your credit ticket is up.”
According to 41-year-old co-owner Karl Pountney, who also owns branches in Aston and Northfield, the key to the business’s success is the friendship and trust he and his staff have built up with customers over the 24 years since he set the business up with his father.
