Eastern Storage Equipment Ltd
Established in 1975 ESE is a leading independent UK manufacturer / supplier of industrial storage equipment, workshop equipment, facilities maintenance equipment, changing room furniture, and lockers.
Design & installation of the above products along with office partitioning, industrial partitions and mezzanine floors began in 1983. Our Projects Division has enormous experience in providing everything from a small office alteration or extension to a stock room to a total reorganisation or refurbishment of offices, warehouses, factories or welfare facilities.
We are an extremely ethical, well financed and stable business with no borrowings, so you can rest assured we will be here to service your needs for many years to come.
Many of our team have been with us for more than 20 years, our project manager was an installer for 25 years before taking up project estimation & managing in 1999, ensuring we can offer you un-rivaled continuity of service, from some of the most technically capable, friendly and dedicated people in our industry.
We welcome your enquiry / order to enable us to demonstrate what makes ESE different, as we firmly believe you should always Expect and Receive Excellent Service.
We guarantee we will always do our best to exceed your expectations because "we want you to want to buy from us again and again".
ESE Structure
Eastern Storage Equipment Ltd has 21 dedicated, friendly and experienced staff working within our three divisions:
- Since 1983 ESE Projects has been designing and undertaking refurbishment contracts for offices, warehouses, factories, leisure facilities, retail premises, trade counters and stores / stock rooms. Using the latest software and our extensive industry experience to ensure the most cost-effective, ergonomic and practical solutions are offered to suit your requirements and budget whether it is a thousand pounds or hundreds of thousands of pounds. We have extremely experienced specialists in office partitions, industrial partitioning systems, mobile shelving, racking and mezzanine floors . We have access to many highly recommended related trades and can compile a full package as principal contractors or work on sites as part of your larger team and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss your requirements in detail.
- Since 1984 ESE Direct has been supplying in excess of 20,000 products to government, the public sector, emergency services, businesses, organisations and charities via our own comprehensive free mail order catalogue and since 2000 via our unique secure Online shop and now via our own E-Catalogue which not only allows you to flick through the pages, it also enables you to build up a basket with ease. This division continues to grow year on year even in the current economic climate and now accounts for more than 50% of turnover. We are currently a UK only supplier however we plan to start supplying Europe and the Middle East fairly soon. You can order by email, live chat, online, phone, fax or by post if you prefer.
- Since 1990 ESE Cloakrooms has been designing and manufacturing cloakroom seating, changing room benches, lockers, peg rails and clothing racks to suit mainly the leisure, education, emergency services, sports, health sectors and also businesses. We manufacture Sixteen Unique Ranges (plus 3 Stainless Steel ranges currently in development) with standard sizes ranging from 1m to 3m wide with many varying options and colour choices. These products are sold through architects specifications to main contractors plus a number of business mail order catalogues, online, via 'approved distributors and direct to the end users. We are confident we can provide strong and competitive solutions to meet your needs, or we will design and manufacture a cost effective bespoke system to suit your exact requirements.
The Team
We are a family businesses and we are in business to serve you our valued customers – Our primary purpose is to offer you the best possible customer service and the best prices for the products you wish to purchase, provided by technically experienced and friendly members of our team.
We have enormous experience within our team at Eastern Storage Equipment (ESE) as you can see.
Technical Sales / Estimating Department
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Stuart A - Joined July 1987
As you can probably guess by the length of time he has been here Stuart has worked in the warehouse, in customer service, as an estimator and now in Technical Sales as he has enormous technical experience in most of the products we sell today (especially shelving, cloakroom equipment and catalogue items) and the options / accessories available. Like Glynis and Mark Stuart has a great many customers who regularly call him to ask "where can I get hold of this…" -
Mark W - Joined December 2002 having worked for our competitors since 1985
Promoted to Sales Manager in 2011 having already worked in our projects and supply only / internet sales, Mark has been a driving force in our sales team for many years. He has tremendous knowledge of almost every product we sell especially heavy racking, handling equipment and bespoke manufactured products (also his speciality at his previous employer) and Mark also has a huge base of regular customers. In all honesty if he or Stuart can't solve your problem I don't know of any other company who could. -
Kelly W - Joined January 2011
Kelly joined us from an major national corporation where she had several years experience as customer co-ordinator, in addition to Sales she is ‘the voice of ESE' (not literally) the chances are when you first call us it will be Kelly who answers and she will try her level best to assist you with our ever increasing enquiries, failing that she will direct your call to one of our technical team. Kelly has already assisted in improving our enquiry turnaround time… A keen keep fit fanatic with a lovely personality she will keep us all on our toes. -
Michelle M - Joined September 2011
Michelle is a new addition to the ESE family. Michelle will be providing our customers with prompt delivery information and ensuring that we are always communicating with our customers throughout the order process. Welcome to the team Michelle! -
Luke P - Joined October 2011
Luke has joined ESE as a General Administrator. Luke will be ensuring that our admin processes flow smoothly and that we are communicating with our customers effectively at all times! Welcome to the team Luke!
Customer Service / Order Processing
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Caroline F - Joined April 1994
Caroline has worked in accounts, sales and order processing and can turn her hand to almost anything. She is passionate about customer service, is very knowledgeable on most of our mail order items and loves providing customer service follow up calls and helping to process accounts, Caroline looks forward to speaking to you soon. -
Glynis C - Joined June 2002
Has specialised in order processing for many years and has built up a brilliant knowledge of lead times and the ranges of products we sell, many regular customers and suppliers ask for her by name. One of several team members who live a very short distance from the office, she has been known to regularly pop back after tea or on weekends to make sure the customer's order has been processed in time to catch the carrier. Loves trying her best to make sure customers get their deliveries on time and the factories keep to their promises. -
Hugo S - Joined August 2010
A relatively new recruit as part of our rapid expansion plans, he has settled in lovely and specialises in making sure ESE and our factories deliver on our promises, he is your first port of call in the unlikely event you should have any issues with any order you place (no-company can claim to be perfect, but we will always try our best).
Projects Department
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Paul K - Joined January 1977
Initially worked as an installer for our projects division and in 1999 came in from the cold to become Projects Manager, because he has installed almost every shelving system, partitioning system we sell, as well as mezzanine floors, changing room benches, lockers, ceilings etc and has meticulous attention to detail, you can rest assured your project will be delivered on-time and to your budget. -
Paul H - Joined March 2008
Paul worked in our industry for more than 20 years before joining ESE. He is based in Essex but covers most of East of England for our projects division, he has incredible knowledge of our product range and loves to assist customers to overcome their problems by designing and creating storage, handling or office refurbishment schemes to suit their budgets. Give him a call today and ask him to assist you. -
Adam Y - Joined September 2011
Adam has recently joined the ESE Project team to assist with co-ordinating activities within the department and to help with turning our increasing volume of enquiries into quotes quicker!
Adam has a wealth of experience gained from the Construction industry and we are sure that he will be a real asset to the team. Welcome on board Adam.
Accounts Department
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Margaret S - Joined February 1989
Margaret is another of our longstanding employees, she joined as an assistant accounts person but quickly stepped up to become a Manager and run our Accounts department and most of the office extremely efficiently. She also produces the management accounts and controls our enviable cash flow situation (we couldn't possibly confirm her nickname as we love her so). If you have account or purchase ledger queries Margaret is the lady to contact for a swift resolution to any issues. -
Roderick B - Joined March 2005
We like to call Rod our 'utility player' as he is often the first to offer his help when the workload starts to build up (as it has recently when our enquiry / order intake increased by a massive 110%), or cover in any department for holidays / sickness and has made it his business to learn almost every single team members job. More recently he has kindly agreed to specialise in Purchase Ledger and Accounts to help us maintain our exemplary payment history with suppliers.
Warehouse / Deliveries
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Neville W - Joined December 1998
Neville is our oldest member of the team (born before the war but not saying which one!), if you see our van coming down your road it is almost certain to be him driving (watch out for the homing pigeons and dogs). Nowadays he mainly covers just the East of England and we use carriers for most deliveries throughout the rest of the UK. -
Darren H - Joined September 2009
Darren is responsible for helping Chris to pack and despatch items from stock and manage our carriers paperwork, he also looks after the assembly of cloakroom seating. Nothing is too much trouble for Darren and he gets on very well with all his colleagues and we look forward to seeing him progress through the company as he has the ability to do. -
Kris C - Joined April 2011
Kris has joined us as our new Warehouse Assistant. Kris has previous warehouse experience that he gained at a national DIY chain. Kris is one of two new apprentices that ESE have recruited as part of the Norfolk campaign to recruit 100 apprentices in 100 days. We are really pleased that Kris has joined us and look forward to training and developing him through his work placement and NVQ in Warehousing in the coming months.
Web / Catalogue Department
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James McC - Joined April 2007
Having had many years experience in programming, database and website design / development for several international banks based in London, James relocated back to Norfolk. Tasked with managing our entire IT systems and helping the others to constantly improve our fantastic websites and the way they integrate into our back office, he is doing a fantastic job as online sales grew by 61% in 2010. He is the closest team member to our offices (I think he could just about throw a keyboard into our yard). -
James McA - Joined May 2010
James worked with us as a freelancer for many months before he joined us permanently in May, he is responsible for the compilation and creation of our brilliant 400 page printed mail order catalogue, our e-catalogue and our Projects / Cloakroom Seating Brochures etc as well as website graphics and is currently building several new websites for us, so watch out for their launch dates in the News section as he is extremely talented and a valued member of our team. -
Lee N - Joined May 2010
Lee is a specialist in search engine optimisation as well as web design and site usability and he works hard with James 1 and James 2 to ensure you can find the products you are looking for on our websites, if you can't find them please let us know so we can resolve the situation for other users. We all learn from other peoples experience and Lee is another valuable member of our team who it is fair to say loves to find solutions to any challenge we have, using his extensive IT skills.
Operations Director
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Natalie S - Joined January 2011
Another new recruit to ESE, Natalie has a wealth of management qualifications and experience and joined us from a major national corporation to look after the efficient running of the day to day business, HR, Health & Safety and many other areas our ever expanding business. She is always ready for a challenge and it feels like she has been here for years already...
Managing Director
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Simon F - Joined March 1984
As you can probably guess by the length of time he has been here, he has worked in the warehouse, as a delivery driver, in sales, in customer service, as estimator, as project manager in fact almost everything except accounts and now his final resting place is Managing Director. Loves just about everything about ESE and our team are his 'extended family' he is now responsible for the creative development of our mail order catalogue and websites, marketing and supplier relationships along with the long term development of the business (33% growth in 2010 can't be bad).
NOTE: Please bear in mind these photos do not really do us justice, the double chins, grey hair (or total lack of hair), beer bellies (this is just the women) have all been added by our wonderful graphics team!!! We look much younger in real life so why not pop in for a coffee soon.
History of Eastern Storage Equipment Ltd
The following is a brief synopsis of the key milestones that have led to ESE becoming one of the leading suppliers of products to businesses across the UK.
January 1975 – Established by Brian Francis, ESE originally operated from a small summerhouse in his back garden just outside Norwich, Norfolk. Primarily selling shelving and racking as he had been working in the industry as the top sales person for one of the leading manufacturers for many years.
1980 – Rapid expansion led to a number of moves, culminating in a final relocation to our current headquarters in Northumberland Street. It is from this location we serve our loyal and extremely varied customer base throughout the whole of the UK.
1983 – Supply and Installation of Mezzanine Floors, Office Partitioning and Industrial Steel Partitions were added to the ranges of products available and the offices were first refurbished to provide a working showroom of the types of products / services we could provide our clients.
1984 – First 128 page Mail Order Catalogue was despatched and the product range was expanded by approximately 4,000 items including trucks / trolleys, signs, noticeboards, first aid kits, bins, ladders, lockers and workbenches.
1990 – Cloakroom Seating manufacturing division was established and the first Versa range of cloakroom benches were designed and sold primarily through other mail order catalogue companies.
1997 – First fairly basic Brochure Website was launched (most competitors did not even have a website).
1999 – Brian's eldest son, Simon took over as Managing Director (having started in 1984 in the warehouse and gained experience across the business first like many of our team), the business expanded beyond expectations, the customer base more than trebled and ESE continued to grow year on year.
2000 – Full Online Ordering Website was launched containing all 7,500 products from our 300 page mail order catalogue.
2003 – The Changing Room Bench ranges we manufacture were fully redesigned and cost engineered in conjunction with some of our Architect / Main Contractor clients to provide benches with industry leading seat strength, easy on-site assembly, the best range of 'standard sizes' and common 'core components' to aid versatility / reduce stock variations.
2004 – Independent websites were created for each division to enable more product information to be displayed specific to our 'core products' www.esedirect.co.uk - www.eseprojects.co.uk - www.cloakroomseating.co.uk As a result online business more than doubled in that year.
2007 – In the following years we entered a number of National and Regional Awards for customer service, technology and business growth and were lucky enough to have won or been finalists in 80% of all entered.
2008 – Was the best year to date in our 33 year history, with increased sales, significantly increased spread and numbers of customers across the UK (only 4 postal districts not supplied) and we supplied products to more than 190 different industries. Two new cloakroom bench ranges were designed and existing range was updated to reflect the latest requirements from Sport England and the Football Foundation.
2009 – March, launched new cloakroom ranges - Budget range, ex stock changing room bench seating for the construction industry and – Club range, aesthetically pleasing designer cloakroom benches at extremely competitive prices. Spent months analysing all product ranges / supplier performance and prices to ensure we continue to offer the Best Products at the Best Prices, resulting in the creation of our own in-house compiled / designed 352 page catalogue to display our best sellers and new / unique product ranges, all with multi-buy prices and enough information to enable an informed purchasing decision.
2010 – February, launched new mail order catalogue to new and existing customers along with brand new in-house designed online ordering website and E-Catalogue, resulting in a 33% increase in sales and 69% increase in customers. Recruited four new team members to maintain customer service and totally refurbished our offices / facilities to accommodate them and the extra team members starting in early 2011.
2011 – An Operations Director has been appointed to help manage our significant growth, along with four additional team members to ensure we maintain our 99% customer satisfaction rate. Our entire IT systems / software was upgraded to streamline processes, improve customer service / handle larger volumes of orders / enquiries and help to make us more efficient. The improved 2011 catalogue now contains 1,100 new products among 400 pages of seriously competitive quality products request your copy now. A new range of Stainless Steel Cloakroom Seating with compact laminate seats was launched in April.
ESE have also been fortunate enough to have already Won 2 awards, are Finalists in another and been shortlisted for two more, thanks to the continued hard work of our dedicated and every growing team, we look forward to being of service to you very soon.
2012 – Watch this space...
ESE Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Corporate Responsibility
ESE firmly believes that CSR is an integral part of our business and we are dedicated to making a positive contribution to our communities, being a good employer and minimising our environmental impact.
Our Workplace
ESE is committed to providing good workplace standards for everyone.
- We have recently refurbished our premises to create additional space and an enhanced working environment / facilities for our dedicated team at the same time as reducing our carbon footprint and utilities consumption.
- We are committed to employing a diverse workforce to assist in meeting the needs of a diverse customer base.
- It is our policy to provide staff with training and career development so they can grow and develop within the company; many of our team are long serving employees which is testament to the support and development that each individual receives.
- We offer flexible working to enable individuals to balance the needs and demands of both their home and work lives.
Essentially we want our team to be happy and engaged at work and as passionate about our business as we are, as we know this leads to the very best in customer service delivery.
Our Culture
At ESE we encourage our team to:
- Treat all customers and suppliers the same way as we would expect to be treated as individuals.
- Develop long term partnerships with suppliers, customers and colleagues that are mutually beneficial to all.
- Always work in an honest and open manner ensuring that our pricing is transparent and that we are proactive in our customer service delivery.
- Be polite and respectful to everyone and to assist each other both in and out of work as we are still a family run business.
Our Environment
ESE aims to sustain and improve our natural environment for the benefit of all and we are committed to:
- Continual improvement in our environmental performance by improving the efficiency with which we use resources and comply with relevant environmental regulation and legislation.
- Investing in technology to minimise the use of paper / materials with the aim of moving to a paperless office. Any waste paper is shredded, recycled and made into animal bedding.
- Reducing, reusing or recycling packing materials such as steel / wood / cardboard and consumables such as plastic / inks / toners etc wherever possible.
- Encouraging our staff to share transport, use cycles or walk to work wherever possible.
Our Communities
ESE is an active member of our local community.
- We make a positive contribution to local communities by bringing jobs for local people.
- We use as many local suppliers as possible to benefit the local economy.
- Our Directors work with local causes such as Nelson's Spirit, Nelson's Journey and The Hamlet Centre, we contribute to other local causes involving our team as much as possible.
ESE Contact Information
| Email: | sales@ese.co.uk |
| Phone: | 01603 629 956 |
| Fax: | 01603 630 113 |
| Head Office Address: | Wensum Works 150 Northumberland Street Norwich Norfolk NR2 4EE |
| Company Registration: | 1279230 |
| VAT Registration No: | 287 8262 10 |
If you are in doubt about the suitability of any product please contact us for unbiased, friendly and free advice.
In addition to our office sales team, we have extremely experienced and friendly field sales engineers happy to visit you whether you are in Norwich, Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Colchester, Chelmsford, Cambridge, Kings Lynn, Peterborough, Harlow, London, Luton, Stevenage, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Northampton, Corby, Coventry, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Maidstone, Tonbridge, Edenbridge, Crawley, Guildford, Slough or just about anywhere else for that matter, and provide free no obligation advice / quotations.