New showroom

The new showroom at the company’s offices in Peterborough

Recent investment in Peterborough has improved the company’s ability to demonstrate its products to potential customers. A new 8 metre by 10 metre permanent showroom facility has been created, complete with a kitchen area, where a range of seats for bus, coach, rail and aircraft show off what can be achieved with E-Leather. Not only the manner of the trimming is shown, but the various different grains, colours and special features such as piping, embroidery and embossing.

Well lit, the showroom has seating areas where meetings can be held while sitting on the product. A variety of bus and coach seats are permanently displayed, as well as rail and aircraft seats. Bus and coach seats exhibited include examples from Esteban, Lazzerini, Chapman Driver’s seating, Politecnica, Gibicar, Cogent and Kiel. These are the types that have most commonly been specified to date. Smaller samples show the embroidery possibilities.

And if you have chosen your colours but you are not sure how they will look in a coach, or you can’t make your mind up what to choose, there is a Custom Configurator computer facility which enables a visual impression of a coach interior featuring your choices to be created on a screen. It can include all of the extras such as colours, seat types, headrests and piping and incorporates a zoom facility. A separate programme illustrates bus options.

Carl is delighted to have the new showroom available to welcome customers. He commented, ‘It gives the operators the chance to see first hand the seat designs and options, the colours and textures, and with the configurator, to see how their interior would look.’

Also displayed in the showroom are a number of products that can be used to help maintain the finish in pristine condition, as well as Ink Stop, a coating that can be applied pre-service that makes it easy to remove biro and other ink marks.

There are costs involved in setting up to produce a particular colour so the minimum batch length the company will supply of a bespoke colour is 600metres. Standard colours are available ex-stock in roll lengths of 30 metres.

E-Leather also works with other parties to provide a service. An example is the Euro Group of Southend who specialise in refurbishing cinemas. They will go into a bus company on a Sunday night, ship out three buses and replace the seats with ones trimmed in E-Leather, and they will be in service again the following day.

Last word

I like leather, have leather seats in my car and believe it gives a quality feel to a vehicle, but at the same time I have been disappointed to see how it has performed over a number of years in some coaches, and here I have in mind some secondhand ex Shearings Van Hools and more recent ex City Circle Jonckheeres, the first exhibiting surface cracking and the second heavy wear on exposed edges. I couldn’t tell the difference between E-leather and traditional leather before Carl told me how to do it, so I doubt that passengers can. Traditional leather represents a considerable on-cost to achieve a heightened perception of quality and if the same can be achieved for less and perform at least as durably, if not more so, then I think operators will increasingly be drawn to it. The bus experience so far certainly seems to be a positive one.

Across all markets the company is growing substantially every year, sales in 2012-2013 rising 180% to £12million. Based on this growth, it came twelfth in The Times Top Tech Companies standings. Five years ago turnover was only £300,000.

• E-Leather can be contacted at the
  Kingsbridge Centre, Sturrock Way, Peterborough PE3 8TZ
  telephone 01733 843939
  fax 01733 843940
  email [email protected]
  additional information available on the www.eleathergroup.com website

By Stuart Jones