10 minute read
Retail Interview - with Fred Prego, digital and marketing director of 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 and gadgets. 20 years later, we have 53 stores (with an average size of 1,500sq ft) in main cities across the UK, a thriving online offering, an eclectic team, and a proposition that caters 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
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
Menkind expands gifting proposition
In November Menkind announced its acquisition of Hawkin’s Bazaar and Stocking Fillers, previously owned by H Grossman. Menkind said the deal, which was made for an undisclosed sum, will provide customers with ‘a significantly larger range to choose from and the benefit of a more seamless customer experience journey, thanks to our 20 years of expertise in the gifting industry’.
Hawkin’s Bazaar was created in 1973 as the place for all types of gifts for boys and girls of all ages. Stocking Fillers was established in 2007 and, as the name suggests, was set up to make shopping for Christmas stockings and presents easier.
The acquisition will see Menkind taking over the websites, customer data and stock. For now, customers will have access to the existing websites but in due course they will be redirected to www.Menkind.co.uk.
kids entertained indoors. Some great examples from our range are party games such as Incohearent and Cards Against Humanity 2.0 and the Jumanji board game.
Post-lockdown, outdoor games have been another of our most successful categories of gifts for kids, with star products including Duel Battle, Body Bubble Ball, and Beat That! The Bonkers Battle of Wacky Challenges.
Furthermore, our own range of educational toys under the brand Construct and Create was particularly successful in 2021.
What’s proving popular at the moment?
which offers cutting-edge technology at affordable prices - is always doing well, providing exciting drones, novelty lights, remote control cars, and more.
Any stand-out successes?
Our own Hydraulic Cyborg Hand (a STEM construction toy that doesn’t use batteries, promoting clean energy) was so successful that we ran out of stock in mid-November: six weeks before Christmas! This line was awarded STEM Toy of the Year at the 2021 Toy Awards, while another line - the Hasbro The Child Animatronic Toy - received the overall Toy of the Year laurel. Hawkin's Bazaar CEO David Mordecai commented: “We are delighted to have been acquired by Menkind. They are market leaders in the gifting industry and bring a world of experience, which makes it truly exciting for this deal to take place. We are so thankful to our loyal customers for their support over the years and feel confident that they are in the best hands possible with Menkind.” Paul Kraftman, CEO at Menkind, added: “We are proud to continue the growth of our business through the acquisitions of these great brands. Reflecting back to 10 years ago, we were among the three main independent gifting retailers alongside Red5 and Hawkin’s Bazaar, and thanks to our dedicated team and expertise we’ve gone from strength to strength, enabling us to acquire these businesses and offer an unrivalled proposition to our customers.”
In-store the remote control Road Rage Speed Bumper Cars have been very successful, as has our own exclusive RED5 Laser Tag shooting game.
In fact, our RED5 brand range - How do you source products?
We attend all the main toy fairs - Nuremberg, Hong Kong, and Canton - but we also have strong relationships
Our Hydraulic “ Cyborg Hand was so successful that we ran out of stock in midNovember! ”
with domestic and Far East suppliers built over 20 years. Currently we arrange regular Zoom calls to discuss and develop new products but hopefully we’ll be back to face-to-face meetings this year.
What's your selection criteria?
Quality is paramount but, obviously, we are fundamentally an entertainment company - so it’s also important to us that there’s a large element of fun. We are also pushing all our suppliers to reduce their impact on the environment, particularly in terms of packaging.
In the last year, have you expanded into new categories?
We have seen an enormous demand for anything related to gaming. We
now offer an exclusive range of gaming chairs for example, and even a range of gaming beds.
What factors influenced your decision to acquire Hawkin’s Bazaar?
Following the acquisition of our main competitor Red5 in 2015 and of Qwerkity in 2019, we were interested in expanding our online credibility further to complement our existing proposition and customer base.
With its extensive range of toys and Christmas gifts, Hawkin’s Bazaar seemed the perfect fit for Menkind.
How will your product mix change following the acquisition?
The range will stay broadly the same but we are adding more toys, novelty gifts, and stocking fillers to our range to retain Hawkin’s Bazaar customers, such as filled Christmas stockings.
We’re also looking at expanding our arcade games range with products like the Arcade Duck Shoot Game, as well as our remote control cars and drones lines, with the addition of items such as the Red5 Eagle Drone and the Robo Kombat Balloon Puncher, and many other quirky items like the Road Rage Speed Bumper Cars.
Another area we're looking to grow is licensed toys and collectables, with the addition of fan-favourite products such as the Marvel Avengers Legends Endgame Power Gauntlet and the Star Wars Black Series Mandalorian Death Watch Helmet.
What’s your favourite toy or game?
It might sound cynical, but in Christmas 2020 I bought the board game Pandemic in one of our stores as a present for my family. It was a great success as the game is about teaming together to win - something which has become increasingly significant over the past couple of years. It’s a great game to play with friends and family.
How do you set yourself apart from the competition?
A lot of the products we offer are exclusive to Menkind. Furthermore, our employees are passionate about the products we sell and usually use them themselves, so our product descriptions and our videos reflect a true sense of authenticity.
What do you offer that other gifts & gadgets retailers don’t?
We aim to create a complete experience for our customers as opposed to a simple transaction. A good example of this is our Menkind Wonderland campaign, in which we created a virtual Christmas market that online users could explore during lockdown. This expanded out to stores and returned last year, helping bring a sense of fun and imagination to Christmas shopping. The desire to offer this experience is at the core of everything we do.
Have you introduced any in-store initiatives recently?
Post-lockdown, we started having events again. As exclusive retailer for the Boglins [hand puppets] comeback in the UK, we organised a launch party in September at our London Westfield store and our Southampton store, where customers could have their Boglins signed by their creator, who came especially from the US. We are keen to do more launch and discovery activities in-store in 2022.
How do you ‘stay ahead of the curve’ when adjusting your product offer to meet customers’ needs?
time on social networks, paying attention to what customers are talking about or craving. Through this insight, we aim to meet customers’ demands, whether that means creating products ourselves or improving what already exists.
Are you looking at new categories for 2022?
We are continuously looking at expanding our range within existing categories - but also expanding into new categories that are relevant to our customer base. For example, working from home essentials or novelty lights to personalise your rooms are new and growing opportunities for us.
What are you most excited about for S/S22?
With people able to meet more indoors and outdoors, I’m excited about our range of party and family games, and our range of BBQ essentials and outdoor games for Father’s Day. But before that I think Valentine’s Day will be big for us and, in particular, our range of health and massage products!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of your job?
Understanding customer needs and being able to talk to them about products that meet their needs. I’m a mathematician at heart, and I spend hours every week looking at numbers and stats to come up with the marketing strategies that will drive sales. I know that my counterpart in Menkind - buying and merchandising director Gary Wakeman - is also having enormous fun building on these customer insights to find the right products for our audience.
What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?
Over the last six months, supply chain has been a challenge - and witnessing some sought-after products go out of stock is very difficult.
