BIG INTERVIEW
OUTDOOR LEISURE COMPANY DESIGNED TO WEATHER THE WORST OF STORMS OLPRO 2020 was the handle Outdoor Leisure Products had given the three-year development plan designed to expand both the company on the ground and its market share. BY HELEN COMPSON While even the most prescient of entrepreneurs couldn’t have forecast the actual events of 2020, Daniel Walton, for one, had reason to be thankful he’d put his award-winning company on the best footing possible to cope with the rollercoaster ride that was about to ensue. “It’s been insane!” he said. “As it turned out, we had an incredible year last year – we were around 60% up on 2019. “We had worked on our business development plan for about three years and
put in place a lot of measures to make sure we’d have a decent year, but then, well …” Daniel spent the first fortnight of the first lockdown watching the sales of OLPRO’s tents, awnings, outdoor furniture, clothing and accessories “drop off a cliff”. However, he soon realised that even though people weren’t buying, they were there, online, and visiting the website in unprecedented numbers.
“Luckily March and April were unusually warm and very quickly we started selling huge volumes of products – in one week, we sold 3000 windbreaks alone.”
Those measures he’d put in place – the appointment of a Marketing Manager, the expansion of the sales force and the improvement of the online customer service platform - suddenly came into their own. The team swung into action.
OLPRO did a roaring trade over the summer, thanks to the renaissance of staycations, and by August had sold out of the stock it had ordered in for the whole year.
“Yes, more people were online, but they were buying less, much less,” he said, “so we put stuff up to capture their interest. “We started talking about garden camping, for example, and how to use the space they did have access to. It was very much in keeping with ‘be safe, don’t go out’, while making the most of what they had.
We understood we were in the middle of Armageddon, we realised people wanted to get outdoors, and we had the products they needed. That was our sweet spot! 024
Daniel said: “We understood we were in the middle of Armageddon, we realised people wanted to get outdoors, and we had the products they needed. That was our sweet spot!” Because the company sells products that people use mostly in the summer, the team devotes the winter months to pre-sales, encouraging customers to get ready for the following spring by ordering from OLPRO’S select new line while they can. In the winter of 2019/20, the team took 100 pre-orders for the new season of tents. This winter, they took 2000. “I am looking at the targets I’d set for the months ahead and we’ve already met them, before we’ve even received this year’s stock,” he said. Daniel started the business in 2011 after having spent 15 years working for the likes of lastminute.com and Towsure. With the
March/April 2021
