As one of our first suppliers, since the early 1960’s, GardenSite has always worked closely with Barlow Tyrie garden furniture, nurturing a successful business relationship over the decades selling and delivering items both here in the UK and all over the world, including Europe, Asia and even Australasia.
Written by Gaby Hall - Marketing Team
Published on Tuesday, 3rd of May, 2022.
Updated on Thursday, 7th of March, 2024
The early range that Barlow Tyrie offered when we first encountered the company as a family garden centre consisted primarily of the 'Braintree bench', which is now sadly discontinued, along with the slightly heavier Barlow Tyrie Felsted range, consisting of chairs and benches and the much heavier London and Rothesay ranges of commercial size and weight benches.
This wasn’t a unique range but Barlow Tyrie did offer an engraving option for these ranges, or the availability of a bespoke metal plaque. This opened up the opportunity to be able to offer personalised memorial benches to our customers. And that is how the partnership originated over 50 years ago.
Many decades later and GardenSite is now officially recognised as a ‘Premier Stockist’ of Barlow Tyrie garden furniture and is proud to be the only location in the West Midlands to display their furniture at our show site in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham for customers viewing and leisure.
In early March 2022, when the country was beginning to really open up again and there was an air of optimism that things were getting back to ‘normal’ thanks to the final easing of COVID restrictions, GardenSite decided to order our 2022 collection of Barlow Tyrie display furniture in readiness for our busy spring season. In this season's display, we have sets from the Titan Rustic range as well as the Aura range, Equinox high dining and various benches.
GardenSite is proud to have displayed Barlow Tyrie furniture in our showroom at our garden Centre in Sutton Coldfield for over 50 years (and counting!). Customers from all over the country come to see and feel the unparalleled quality and finish of their range with their own eyes and hands.
Delivery was smooth as usual and our garden centre managers and staff helped to move the boxes into our showroom. Several comments were made about how well the items were packaged - and that was only from what they could see on the outside!
We took this opportunity to do a small informative interactive lesson about how these Barlow Tyrie products are packaged to enable successful national and overseas delivery along with more recent members of the customer care team who may not have seen this before.
Chairman at GardenSite LLP, Robert Hall, demonstrated not only the packaging used but also the time and care put into doing this effectively for each and every product to ensure safe and damage-free deliveries.
It’s safe to say that the amount and quality of packaging is unrivalled, ensuring no products arrive in less than perfect condition!
The main points noted were:
On Friday 11th March 2022, Barlow Tyrie International sales director, Jason Pitcher visited us here at GardenSite HQ and carried out some in-house training following our latest delivery of display furniture.
We took the opportunity to ask him for his personal comments on their packaging and distribution methods and the elements that he feels have enabled Barlow Tyrie to deliver all over the world for many years.
Every item of Barlow Tyrie furniture is packed carefully and securely when leaving our factory to protect it when being handled during the long shipping periods and onward transportation. We use mainly strong recyclable cardboard to protect our fully assembled or part assembled furniture items to avoid damage. Products that are not boxed are very carefully hand-wrapped, covering all parts of the furniture i.e. legs, arms, back, seat etc with strong cardboard to protect it the whole item in transit.
The same care that goes into our furniture production, goes into its packaging so that customers can enjoy their high-quality furniture on delivery.
~Jason Pitcher, Barlow Tyrie Sales Director
This was very insightful and allowed members of the company to further expand their knowledge of this world leading brand.
Over the years, we have sold and delivered thousands of pieces of Barlow Tyrie furniture both to customers here in the UK and to those further afield in over 4 continents, including Europe, Asia, America and even Australasia!
GardenSite has delivered sun loungers to yachts in the south of France, table and chair sets to castles in Germany, Daybeds to hotels in the British Virgin Islands, and even parasols into the outback in Australia, all arriving in perfect condition, without a hitch!
We do our best to quote our customers the most cost-effective, yet fast and safe delivery method when shipping globally. Many products from Barlow Tyrie are usually ready assembled, however, to help save on the shipping costs of sending fully-assembled furniture across the globe, where possible we can arrange to have them delivered on a self assembly basis instead.
Don't let the need for assembly put you off though, as Barlow Tyrie products sent in their flat-packed form are still exquisitely crafted and delivered in pre-assembled sections, with minimal effort required to put together - so installing them on site is still quick and easy. This helps us to deliver to our customers the very best garden furniture on the market, at an affordable price, wherever in the world its going to.
BREXIT was a time of great uncertainty for all, especially businesses like ourselves who regularly export products all over the world for our customers. With the pressures associated with BREXIT, including rising trade costs and the lack of experience shipping goods abroad, many businesses decided to temporarily suspend their overseas shipping services until the process became more familiar and the risks were less.
Indeed, the new challenges it brought were unprecedented and meant that we had to be resourceful and learn the new rules for exporting goods outside of the UK very quickly and precisely. However, GardenSite invested in the future and accepted the challenge. We felt it our duty to still offer our customers the same level of service we had always offered customers around the world despite the problems we would face post-BREXIT.
And can I say, it certainly was a learning curve! Commercial Invoices EORI numbers, Commodity Codes and TSP numbers were once strangers but are now some of our best friends!
On the day Jason from Barlow Tyrie visited GardenSite Robert Hall had a meeting with an International Trade Advisor from the UK Govt. to understand further about the barriers and opportunities of trading abroad.
Of course, we had to be selective with which products to send overseas, and we are more confident in some ranges than others. One range that we had no doubt about is our Barlow Tyrie lines.
During the immediate post-BREXIT period learning the new rules and procedures to ship items to Europe as well as the rest of the world was very time-consuming and expensive and a lot of companies took the difficult decision to suspend this service due to uncertainty on the new processes.
Of course, we would only offer this service for items that we believe are made and packaged to world-class standards.
For Customs, we will fill out and supply the Commercial Invoice (a document in which you declare what exactly is being sent) on your behalf. This should allow the goods to clear efficiently.
Shipment costings will exclude “destination customs clearance fees, taxes and specific insurance cover” - so we can explain these below:
Destination customs clearance fees - this is the fee applied by customs to cover the cost of submitting documentation and processing duties payment. This is usually fairly minimal and will be invoiced to you directly.
Taxes - this is the tax imposed by your own country, (similar to VAT here in the UK). May I note that you will NOT have to pay UK VAT on an export purchase which should approximately offset the local taxes.
Specific insurance cover - once the goods have been cleared by customs and have left the UK, we cannot be held responsible for their safekeeping in transit. We recommend taking out insurance to ensure that, should any damage occur in transit, or should any items be lost, you can make a claim.
We believe that you should be able to enjoy the high quality and unparalleled Barlow Tyrie quality furniture experience no matter where you are in the world. Please contact us for a specific quotation via email or just add the items you want to the basket and hit the 'Quote Me Now' button you will see during the normal checkout process and we will tailor a quote to suit you, wherever you may be in the world!
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