Today we continue putting local high street traders in the spotlight, as we celebrate July's Independent Retailer Month...
Name: David Picken
Business: The Exchange
Location: 4 Queens Street, Wrexham
Telephone: 01978 358113
Opening hours: 9.30am-4.30pm Monday to Tuesday and Friday to Saturday, 9.30am-2pm Wednesday, 10am-4.30pm Saturday
When did you open and why?
All those years ago we saw an opportunity to capitalise on customer needs, so we opened up and we're still going today. The business really just started off as a jeweller but over time people have been putting in more requests and so the shop has really grown to be something much bigger.
Why did you open in this location?
The shop originally opened on Lords Street around about 12 years ago now, but due to some issues we were having at the time, we decided to relocate to Queens Street, which has moved us even closer to the high street. Also, being opposite British Home Stores, that brought in good business before it closed.
Tell us about your business...
Where to begin? As I say we used to be a simple jeweller, but now we buy and sell products, including bikes, ornaments, musical instruments, TVs, phones. We do repairs as well for things like phones and TVs. We cash cheques, do buy backs, we sell vapes and vape liquids as well. We'll look at pretty much anything.
What's your most memorable/proudest moment in business?
I'm proud every day when we help people. We help people with things they need to buy or sell on a daily basis and I'm proud of that. I'm proud of when people come in desperate and we help them to leave happy.
Sometimes people just need a little help with something, and it makes your day knowing that you have helped them do whatever it is they needed to do.
Have you had any strange requests?
The strangest things people have offered to sell me are a dog, a horse, and someone once tried to sell me some cows too.
The horse one was particularly weird, one day a man just came in with pictures of a horse, not the actual horse itself and asked if we wold buy it from him. I know very little about horses, but I have some friends who do, so I said I'd think about it.
In the end we didn't buy the horse from the man, but we did help advertise it for him, but nothing came of it. I never found out what happened to the horse.
One of our employees actually bought the dog for himself when that was offered to us, so that worked out nicely.
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