A family-run business has shared its struggle to compete in a fast-changing retail environment.
Keighley-based nursery brand BABAB!NG, which has supplied baby products to the trade for more than 20 years, has adapted its approach amid growing pressures facing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Jamie Robinson, sales director at BABAB!NG, said: “We are now having to come at retail in a very different way as a challenger brand.
“A lot of our competitors are big. We’re just a family-owned business with four people. Decisions at Whitehall are strangling SME businesses.
“We do without a shadow of a doubt require more people, but issues such as minimum wages rises and increased employer national insurance contributions make it difficult.
“We don’t know how long it will be before we get more people. We employ temps to help when we need it.”
The company operates from a warehouse on Royd Ings Avenue, Keighley, supplying premium nursery products to retailers including John Lewis and Mamas & Papas.
It also sells directly to consumers through its website and physical store.
As a smaller business, Mr Robinson believes BABAB!NG’s size offers unique advantages.
He said: “We try to personalise our service to the customer.
“We want to create a brand which puts a face to a name. We’re also very selective with who we work with as we’re not leveraged like the bigger brands.
“One of the mantras we live by is that ‘product is king’. You don’t have to pay a designer price for a good product.”
Mr Robinson criticised national policies on minimum wage and employer contributions, arguing they are limiting the growth and sustainability of businesses like BABAB!NG.
He said: “Sometimes the decisions in Westminster represent the few. They don’t know what it’s like to run a SME which wants to grow and open more stores.
“The world is changing and the cost of living is biting. Your middle classes are being more considered in their purchases of products because they want it to be their last.”
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In response, a HM Treasury spokesperson said: “We have the right economic plan – we’re backing high street businesses by reforming business rates, including a £4.3 billion support package to limit bills rises, capping Corporation Tax at 25 per cent, cutting red tape and taking action on the cost of living to keep footfall strong.”
The government pointed out that there are employer NICs reliefs, which includes firms not paying employer NICs on wages between the Secondary Threshold and £50,270 for employees under the age of 21 and for employees under the age of 25 who are apprentices.
