Whitby & Co
Well-known for Wenger Swiss Army Knives and Leatherman multi-tools, there’s a lot more to Whitby & Co and they’re evolving all the time. SGB gets the lowdown…
K
endal-based distributor Whitby & Co has a lot going on this summer, as customers will find out at the forthcoming OTS show. SGB Outdoor caught up with Garry Woodhouse, Sales and Marketing Director, to find out about their expanding portfolio and their plans for OTS.
SGB: There’s a lot more to Whitby & Co than distributing Wenger and Leatherman – what else do you distribute?
Garry Woodhouse: We also distribute Nite-Ize travel accessories, they offer a huge array of product, plus Princeton Tec, we mainly have head lamps and a few hand torches from them. There’s Luger binoculars and monoculars from Germany, and also Zippo lighters, plus their new hand warmer. Opinel knives from France, Buck Knives from the US. Puma of Germany, Helle Knives of Norway, Marttiini Knives of Sweden, Nieto knives of Spain. Then we have our range of Sheffield product which includes people including Joseph Rodgers. We have a whole host of Whitby products which are manufactured and distributed under our own name, everything from safety rescue products to filleting, fisherman's knives, pouches and accessory bits and pieces.
SGB: You've just taken on the distribution of Heat Factory – what can you tell us about the brand? Are
you taking their whole inventory, or cherry-picking? GW: We are cherry picking from Heat Factory initially, I have their full catalogue and it's quite staggering to see the variety of product they offer. Bear in mind that they are a US company and the extremes of weather and the duration of these extremes that they can experience over there, mean that they have a greater depth to their requirement for heat-producing product.
We had a severe winter this last time in the UK in terms of prolonged snow and ice, and we had a sell-out with the new Zippo fuel based hand warmer. Based partly on our success with the Zippo hand warmer we were very receptive to Heat Factory when they approached us, the products are very lightweight, there is little in impact on the environment, they’re also inexpensive and quite flexible with strong branding and good margins for the retailer.
We will absolutely still have the Zippo hand warmer though, as we see them as quite separate from Heat Factory and the Zippo was amazingly
18 SGB OUTDOOR SEPTEMBER 2010 successful last winter.
Zippo has a tremendous pedigree and they have huge brand awareness. The Zippo is a permanent product where you just top up the fuel, it's more expensive than a single use throwaway hand warmer, so they have a different intent and markets.
SGB: You recently re-organized the company – what does that mean for customers, if anything? GW: Whitby remains a small company, we employ a 16 people here in Kendal and we also have directly- employed and self-employed salesmen out on the road. Our size allows us to react to changes in market forces quite quickly.
We've looked at the sales and a marketing side with our changing customer base – we have a lot of outdoor customers, and a lot of industrial customers as well as a presence in the gift market, corporate market and the Defence sector. Our business has been dramatically changed in terms of the number of customers who are retailing our product online, and the characteristics of those customers can be different in some respect to the other majority customers who are high- street retail. So looking at that we've recognized that we were not necessarily addressing our customer base in the most efficient way in terms of maximising sales opportunities and also in minimising our costs . So our sales office, who have always been very good in a reactive sense, will go a stage further and give the customer awareness of other products and
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