Location, Location, Location!

18th November

Every weekend at auctions around the country, real estate agents spruik, “location, location, location”, as it can make or break an investment property or business. When Malcolm Bryne moved his saddlery business from Ascot Vale to Werribee Park and improved his location, the business steadily grew.

Malcolm Byrne entered the saddlery trade in July 1975, apprenticed to the firm of Calcutt & Sons of Sutton Scotney in England. In 1981 he moved to London to work as a freelance saddler, producing exclusive custom made saddlery for some of the city's major retail saddlers. Since 1986 Malcolm has been living in Melbourne, where he has built a reputation for quality and service both in Australia and overseas. With a small team of highly skilled saddlers, trained 'in house', Malcolm creates custom made saddles, bridles and accessories for many top competitors in all equestrian disciplines.

Horse Deals spoke to Mal about how Equine Influenza has affected his business, especially now that it is located in a quarantine station. “I had a really good July and August and have been fine up until now, as I was a long way behind with orders, but now I have caught up and the phone is just not ringing. I have thousands of dollars worth of orders here and people will not pick them up. I have a two fold problem, there are no weekend competitions here, when I normally do the majority of my business and the second problem is people have really panicked about Werribee becoming a quarantine station and are not reacting rationally. People are seeing risks that are not there. We normally do a couple of saddle fittings a day, where people bring their horses to me, but people will not come here at the moment.”

“I have cut the hours back of the girls who work for me, but as they have been trained here over the last 10 years, it is very important that I can keep them and the business ticking over. At the moment we are making stock for when things pick up again.”

“We will get through this, but I feel for the big saddlery stores that had large stock orders, that they now need to pay for.” So we all need to take the advise of a press release earlier this week; “Horse lovers are urged to 'get tacky' this year and do their Christmas shopping at saddleries, produce and tack stores, as the industry buckles under the strain of Equine Influenza”.

Mal Byrne Saddlery Store at Werribee Park (where at the moment there are no horses being quarantined) is open 9.30-6pm Monday to Friday and 11-4 Saturdays and on Sunday when there are events at Werribee Park.

http://www.malbyrne.com.au/index.htm