SLATER menswear is a retailing anomaly.

Ignoring the golden rule of retailing - that street level shop-frontage is king - the company sets up its stores on the first floor of shopping centres.

The strategy has proved successful for the Glasgow-based retailer and its new store in Worcester's Cathedral Plaza - its 16th - is no exception.

Covering 10,000sq ft of the former Russell & Dorrell department store, the shop, which opened in November, also adheres to the other Slater rule - "big is better" - with a huge range of branded menswear.

The third pillar of the Slater product offering is to sell these branded lines at up to 40 per cent off the recommended retail price.

It can do this because its rentals are between one tenth and one fifteenth of those of a shop on the ground floor.

The formula works well - mainly because the firm puts customer service first so people keep coming back - and Worcester, which employs 17 staff, is proving to be no exception.

Although figures were not yet available for the store's first eight weeks of trading, store manager Iain McCarren said it was trading "brilliantly".

It has deviated slightly from the Slater's formula, being more central than other stores, which have traditionally been "off the beaten track".

The family-owned and run Slater group has preferred to rely on customer service to generate word of mouth rather than pay huge rents to be noticed.

"Our MD Paul Slater is very happy with Worcester," said Mr McCarren, who, at 27, is the group's youngest store manager.

"It's the best store in the country - right beside Next - and we have very high expectations.

"Word of mouth - and our newspaper advertising - gets people up the stairs. Once someone has come to the store, they will come back because we have the prices, the range of sizes, the service and the brand names."

A household name in Scotland, Slaters started 30 years ago when founder Ralph Slater set up his first shop in Glasgow.

One of seven children to poor Jewish parents from Latvia, Ralph left school at 14 to follow his father and became a tailor.

But he did not see why "ordinary people" should have to pay the high prices for clothes that were normal at the time.

So the self-confessed dandy - he wore patent leather shoes for most of his life until he passed away in 1997 - set up his store in the back streets of Glasgow, with his family helping to make up the garments.

His philosophy of making "a small profit on a lot of sales" still drives the company.