Weird Fish


keep up with demand


Weird Fish is one of the UK’s best known ‘crossover brands’ with a very well known – and much admired – line of garments in their Macaroni range. John Stockton, Managing Director, spoke to SGB Outdoor about their expansion


W


eird Fish is in the midst of a three- year plan to expand its lines and to sell more to its existing customer


base. But to escape their ‘physical restraints’, John Stockton explained to SGB that the company simply had to move to a bigger warehouse so they now enjoy bigger capacity and promise better customer service. "The business had grown quite steadily to


2008 – we dealt with 400 independents and then we added to those one or two key accounts, most notably Cotswold. The demands they stipulated in terms of time of delivery meant simply that we needed to move premises," John told us. With the new premises comes added pressure


to sustain some growth, though John is confident about what the company needs to do over the next three years. “We have set in place a three- year plan as from a business perspective, with the new building comes increased costs. What we are aiming to do is to develop and sell more to our existing customer base and to offer


further categories. We have a nice core product that sell through very well, which includes the Macaroni and T- shirts; but we do not want to get pigeonholed for just doing them. We need


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to develop further categories, for outdoor, some nice fleeces using interesting fabrics and do some product development to supplement some the product we currently do. We have a loyal customer base who are waiting for more from us, so in the short term we will be offering more new products to our independents and key accounts." Knowing your brand’s strengths is vital, of


course, and John understand what a Weird Fish customer comes to them for. “Our hero products are still the Macaroni as it's apres hiking, then jackets as we can deliver a good quality product for under £100. It's a quality range too, we are not trying to compete with the outdoor market specialists but offer a stylish product that is waterproof. We also have technical pants and layering pieces which we have good customer loyalty for as they are durable with comfort styling.” But they’re not standing still, with a variation


on their classic lines in the form of the Tech Mac. John added: “The Tech Mac gives customers a little bit more colour and variety. We have the traditional Macaroni product and we wanted to add a garment with more detail and brighter colours. It's almost like 'Son of Macaroni'! Weird Fish were founded in 1993 by Doug


Tilley. He developed the core range of product which had a broad appeal to water-sports and marine accounts. Gradually due to the durability and quality, comfort and fit and the general lifestyle appeal to men and women, Weird Fish got a broader awareness for use for sports and outdoor lifestyle. John says," We have a clean brand name as we have always been careful with


who we work with. Our distributors are carefully chosen not just for geographical reasons but for their drive and enthusiasm in our product, they give us longevity. We do have five of our own stores but we haven't got any plans to open any more. We opened a few part-stores, like in St. Ives last year, and there are three or four more planned. These come about by people approaching us and we partnered up. Again though, we do it carefully as brands are brands and retailers are retailers. We are a brand so all our best people are working on the brand, we feel too many stores would cause a distraction for us.” That’s not the end of the brand though, with a


store-in-store project for retailers too. “With the independent as well we have developed store-in-store areas so our new ranges can be seen in a nest with our existing products. It gives a bit of a 'halo' effect as people come searching for the traditional products and then see new shirts, fleeces and jackets. We have helped some of our independents to lay out as in some cases it doesn't come naturally as they merchandise by style not category.”


Weird Fish move to new premises to


SGB OUTDOOR JULY 2010


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