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Happy 20th Birthday to the Better Blind Company!

31/10/2008

We are extremely pleased to announce that the Better Blind Company will celebrating is 20th Birthday this month! It was 20 years ago when Kathryn Pendleton first founded the Better Blind Company and since then we have sold hundreds of thousands of blinds to customers all over the UK.

Kathryn Pendleton founded the company in 1988, working from a home office in a spare room. Before starting the company, she had spent her time raising her two children Nick and Tim, whilst her husband Phil worked at a company selling windows.

It was only after a friend of Phil’s suggested that they started selling window blinds that Kathryn decided she would give it a go. During the start-up, Kathryn would work on building up her company while Phil was at work. Then, when he came home Phil would help Kathryn with the business as well.

After two years, it was clear that the Better Blind Company had some real potential, and decided to join Kathryn working full time with the Better Blind Company.

With Phil’s business and selling experience the Better Blind Company quickly reached new heights – securing contracts with the NHS and many local authorities, schools and universities.

During the week Kathryn would hand deliver thousands of leaflets around the local area, with the help of her boys and their school friends, Then on weekends Phil and Kathryn would drive to Wales and collect blinds from the manufacturer ready to deliver and fit for their customers. They soon started manufacturing from a home workshop.

Around 5 years later, they moved the business out of the home and into a unit based in Hyde, Cheshire. From here, they not only manufactured and sold window blinds but also glass. They employed manufacturing and glass cutting staff to handle the workload. Phil’s duties involved surveying and fitting the products they made, and Kathryn took care of the order processing and sewing. If they had a large order she would also help Phil install the blinds.

Business was now booming, the couple had out-grown their modest unit and it was time to move into something bigger. They found a great building in Gee Cross near Hyde, which they decided to purchase and convert it into their factory and office.

Now, we fast forward to July 1999 and Tim, Kathryn’s youngest son who was part way through a degree in in Business Management, saw great potential in the internet as a way of selling blinds to the public and in December 1999, NewBlinds.co.uk was launched as the first online retailer of window blinds.

“Who would buy blinds online!?” was a common thought between the other members of staff. The answer soon became apparent!

Although the Better Blind Company was the first blind company to sell blinds online, there are many others. Online blinds sales is now a business in its own right.

Tim rapidly changed how the business operated and marketed itself, and took it from being a local blinds company to a nationwide blinds supplier and manufacturer.

Twenty years on from when Kathryn sold her first blind, and the company now employs a wide range of staff, from surveyors and manufacturing staff, to web developers.

The Better Blind Company have also extended our product range from just blinds to related products such as fly screens. The Better Blind Company is now an established brand in the UK that symbolises quality, fast delivery and excellent service.

From the modest start up of selling blinds locally, the Better Blind Company has vastly expanded. Whilst we still deal with local residential customers, we now of course sell online, and also supply and install to commercial customers dealing with many different parties within the contracts market including architects, main contractors and end users within many sectors such as Healthcare, Local Government and Education.

The company was established and has thrived on a philosophy of friendly and fast service, expert advice and quality, value for money products. This means that you can buy from NewBlinds.co.uk, safe in the knowledge that we are a company who are not just going to disappear over night.

To celebrate our birthday and to thank our many customers, NewBlinds.co.uk are running various promotions throughout the next year. You can easily identify which products are on sale by the tagline ‘20th Birthday Sale!” Blinds can be purchased and paid for securely online with rapid delivery and great savings.

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