RETAIL INTERVIEW MENKIND
Menkind
comes of age Fred Prego, digital and marketing director of Menkind, talks to Clare Turner about the gift and gadget retailer’s toys and games offering Tell us about Menkind. Menkind opened its first store in 2001 in Uxbridge. The idea was simple - to create a space that was unequivocally, unapologetically for men. It would make gifting for men easy, and would be a place for men to escape, let their hair down and give in to their inner kids. In those early days, the proposition was based on traditional gifts for men. But Menkind has never been ordinary. And over the years the company has developed to offer a huge range of quirky, unusual, exciting, and sometimes sentimental gifts We now and gadgets. offer a diverse 20 years later, we have 53 range of gifts stores (with an average size for kids with of 1,500sq ft) in main cities across the UK, a thriving online almost 700 offering, an eclectic team, lines on our and a proposition that caters website to a huge variety of people, spanning a wide range of ages and interests. But our core proposition still remains that of ‘Making Men Happy’! We do this through a carefully mixed cocktail of originality, humour, and a strong sense
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of identity. When men walk into our stores or visit our site, we want them to feel like kids in sweet shops – absolutely enthralled by all the unique and exciting products. By the same token, we want anyone shopping for a man to feel fully satisfied that the perfect gift exists and is easy to find in our range.
What are your core categories? Menkind is famous for gifts and gadgets for men. With our new brand positioning of ‘Making Men Happy’, the focus is back to key gifting categories for men, such as food and drink, gadgets, gaming, fun stuff, massage and health, and experiences.
How has trading been for you? The past 18 months have been challenging with stores closed due to lockdown for long periods. During that time, our website sales increased three-fold, well ahead of the national shift to online shopping, which we attribute to the strength of the Menkind brand awareness due to our physical store presence. On a bricks-and-mortar level,
customer confidence seems to have returned recently and our sales in store are ahead of 2019, while our website sales are similar to 2020 when we were in lockdown, placing us in a very good position for 2022. During lockdown, our team was quick to identify developing trends and to create the personal experience that so many customers were searching for. This shows a resilience and creativity that I’m sure has helped to keep Menkind at the forefront of the gifting industry and will continue to do so in the future.
How have toys and games been performing? During the first lockdown we saw a huge increase in sales of games, as people looked for entertainment at home, and we increased our range accordingly. As a result, we now offer a diverse range of gifts for kids with almost 700 lines on our website. These include key categories such as puzzles and board games, which are always in high demand, and were even more sought-after in the beginning of the lockdown period, as families were looking for ways to keep
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