Celebrating 40 years of service - GPH Builders Merchants
Discover GPH and why we’ve had the privilege of working with our customers for 40 years in our 40th anniversary special edition blog.
Quick Links:
Our History in Brief
Since our founding 1982 as Garioch Plant Hire by Jock Ingram, Eric Ingram, and Mike Macaulay, we have been delighted to service the trade industry in the North East of Scotland. From the first cement mixer hired in the 80s to the latest delivery of timber for someone’s home build DIY project, we’ve been lucky enough to have found a home in the daily lives of thousands of customers from Aberdeen City, Shire and beyond.
Throughout our 40-year history our staff have always focused on delivering the best experience possible. Expertise on all our products, from paving and decking to blocks and power tools, has always been readily available in our stores and, as we expand into our new online space, we will bring that access to our future digital customers too. We’ve spent the last 40 years changing with our customers and we’ll spend the next 40 doing just that too.
(Mike Macaulay - Chairman, GPH Builders Merchants)
Click here to view full sized timeline.
Plant Hire to DIY
How did we go from renting heavy duty equipment to selling over 25,000 retail items? It’s a bit of a leap but it was all down to a bit of creative in-house thinking by a man by the name of Alfred. Fred got to know his regular customers, as our staff still like to do, and realised that many of them would visit, hire, and then head off to pick up their materials for the daily jobs. Concrete and concrete blocks. Why not stock those too? Fred thought. And that was it. We were suddenly stocking retail items alongside our plant.
(Opening of Garioch Plant Hire at Harlaw Road - Inverurie | 1982)
Over the next few decades, we expanded our range as our customers explained what they needed. We asked questions and worked with them until we knew their business inside out. But, it wasn’t just tradesfolk who were stopping by every day. We began to attract a loyal local following of DIY enthusiasts. From screws to timber, from postcrete to paints. These handy people didn’t need the quantities that our trades customers required but they needed choice. Our business adapted again. We adopted lines of products specifically aimed at our retail customers. Dulux colour matching paints, domestic spec. tools, and even retail clothing.
Until…
GPH Home & Garden
(GPH Home & Garden Ellon)
We finally celebrated our acquisition of JRD Equipment in Ellon in 2017. It was a completely new style of business for the company but a fantastic opportunity to fully dedicate to the retail market. GPH Home & Garden, as it was finally rebranded in 2021, included a whole different product range. It even included a restaurant. Broomies.
Broomies offers our customers a relaxing atmosphere to enjoy a meal, drinks, or even an afternoon tea for 2 (or more!). Its recently renovated look brings even more cosy surrounds to a service we’re delighted to be able to offer our retail customers. Something we’re sure never even crossed the minds of our founders back then. We’ve since launched our Broomies food2go app, allowing customers to pre-order and enjoy food to takeaway in a hurry.
Concrete on Demand
2021 Saw the return of the much needed "on-demand" volumetric concrete service. GPH Quickmix can provide onsite delivery of up to 8m3 of concrete on demand. Whatever mix you need, whatever access you might have, we will mix on site. No waste. No excess fees. Demand has been phenomonal and we've already taken delivery of a second Volumetric mixer truck to service this area of demand for, hopefully, the next 40 years.
Buy Online
As of 2021 we’ve launched our new Ecommerce website to support the growing needs of trade and retail customers alike for simple, on-demand ordering. For our retail customers they have come to expect the simple, expedient ordering processes that they enjoy from retail giants such as Amazon. But our trade customers can now also enjoy an easy way to see their trade prices, create quotes, place orders and pay with credit/card all in one place. We aim to make sure that if our customers need something quickly then a simple visit to our website, to order and click & collect, will save them time and give them a super simple experience.
All for a Good Cause
This year our goal is to raise over £40,000 for a variety of charities to celebrate our anniversary and give back a little of our time and energy to help some good causes. So far we've raised over £3,000 for Maggies through our sponsorship of the Highland Football League Cup.
We've got loads of good ideas for fundraising and we'll update you very soon about what's coming next! (Watch this space.)
Our People
We employ >100 people across our various locations. We have our yard staff, drivers, sales & customer service, front of house & till staff, admin, stock controllers, transport, management, plant hire, IT, and financial teams. Not to mention a number of graduate positions provided in conjunction with Opportunity North East and Kickstart scheme opportunities that are ongoing or upcoming throughout the next year.
(GPH Staff - Inverurie | 21/04/2022)
We are incredibly proud to have such incredible staff working with us every day.
We have the ever busy sales and counter teams who answer calls, queries, and process orders for our retail and trade customers alike. They are a constant source of product expertise that we are fortunate enough to have at our fingertips every day. All our regular customers will recognise our front of house team members and we can't thank them enough for their constant attention to our customers.
The yard staff keep our racking stocked, look after our customers safety, and make sure they get what they need loaded and away to site incredibly quickly. They're always hard at work from the moment we open our gates in the morning (and before!).
Our drivers are constantly on the go and, alongside our transport team, play a huge role in making sure our local customers get their goods delivered to homes and worksites around Aberdeen City and Shire, and further, every week.
Our Broomies team at GPH Home & Garden are always there to make sure your coffee is hot and your service exceptional.
The plant hire team are always there to help with a demonstration, provide repairs, organise delivery, and generally offer advice on what you might need to finish your job, no matter what it might be.
Behind the scenes you'll find our Finance, IT, Ecommerce, Administration, Visual Merchandising, and Management teams make sure everything is working smoothly every day. It takes a lot of hard work from our non-customer facing staff to make sure we can provide the service our customers expect.
The Next 40
What's next? Well, the next 40 years are sure to bring even more surprises, excitement, challenges, and opportunties.
We will:
- Grow our ecommerce platform while also maintaining the level of service and expertise our customers expect from us instore.
- Invest in our staff, our transport, and our bricks and mortar stores to continually improve our services.
- Challenge ourselves with ambitious Net Zero targets. With investment in renewable energy and technology, reduction of waste to landfill, and a paperless target of 5 years just some of the goals we have set out for ourselves.
- Employ more apprentices, trainees, and graduates, and we aim to create learning and development programmes to rival any in our industry.
- Constantly improve the quality of our products, and work to efficiently manage the stock supply we hold to give our customers the best possible access to the tools and materials they need for their projects.
- Develop long lasting customer relationships and make sure we're always meeting your needs.
All in all, we're probably going to be pretty busy.
See you in 2062!
Short Code:
Credit Limit:
Current Balance:
