RETAIL INTERVIEW:
Menkind
Gifts & gadgets galore With their 59 stores now reopened and exciting plans for the summer in place, we caught up with Fred Prego, marketing director of Menkind, to learn how the company is tempting customers back into its stores, and boosting online services to those who still prefer to shop from home Fred, what’s your career journey to this role? I began my career in marketing with Kimberly-Clark, later moving to British Airways as head of marketing for Air Miles/ Avios. After this, I was marketing director for GAME retail before joining Gift Universe in early 2020. Does Menkind have a typical customer? Even though we are a gifts and gadgets store with a range that appeals more to a male audience, half of our customers are female, showing that we sell as much to men who want to indulge their thirst for gadgets as we do to women. We also have customers from a variety of different age groups, so our customer profile is very diverse. There is not much difference between those who shop in store and those who shop online as we have customers of all ages and different demographics visiting all our channels.
26 Gifts Today
How many Menkind stores are there now? Currently, we have 59 stores across Great Britain and, from May, all our stores were branded Menkind as the last Red5 store in Leeds moved to Menkind. And what about the pop-up stores for key periods like Christmas? Yes, we do open generally around 25-30 concessions or pop-up stores at Christmas time due to the busy period for gift giving. We’ve had great success with these pop-up stores in the past, as customers across the country loved the variety of our Christmas range. Bestsellers across gifts? It is difficult to pick a few as we literally have hundreds that we sell all year round. We have extended our wellbeing range that is doing very well and has been well received
with customers. Our Red5 tech gadgets are always favourites, in particular remote control toys and drones that don’t require registration, such as the Red5 Kestrel Drone with FPV. Any unexpected hits during lockdown? At the beginning of lockdown, we sold hundreds of jigsaw puzzles and adult games you can play remotely. Similarly, during the most recent lockdown we sold many beer-making kits and beer draft pourers, as people were keen to recreate the pub experience at home. Generally, stay-at-home entertainment product ranges have been quite popular, and we stock a great variety of items in this arena. How did the company deal with the first lockdown back in March 2020? As well as introducing new lines of products
