Selling: Boxing
Pro-Box: 25 years in the making
As boxing equipment supplier Pro-Box moves towards its 25th birthday, founder and managing director Graham Sussex tells David Pittman how the company is moving with the times to stay one step ahead of the competition.
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ro-Box was founded in 1987 when engineer Graham Sussex built a boxing ring for his local amateur club. This led to him building rings for others and resulted in his passion for the sport becoming a fully- fledged business.
The business grew further when it acquired a leather sporting goods manufacturer and moved into other areas of the market by providing a full product offering to its customers. And it is the only British boxing equipment manufacturer to have been issued with a Safety and Quality Assurance Licence from the Amateur International Boxing Association in recognition of its commitment to attention to detail and safety.
These days, Pro-Box services just shy of 1,000 accounts from across the market, ranging from wholesalers to retailers, and provides them with training equipment, competition equipment, accessories and clothing. Pro-Box also sells fixings and brackets, instruction materials, souvenir products and martial arts equipment amongst other things.
Sussex says: “We offer everything from key rings to boxing rings. We have a big customer base as we are well known in the market and specialise in fight sports, nothing else. Year-after-year we have been doing the same thing, unlike others who have entered the market to try and capitalise on the next big thing.
“They don’t have the pedigree we do, which is why we have such a strong base.”
Pro-Box’s base is growing, so says Sussex, as its heritage pays yet more dividends. “New resellers tend to look at three or four main suppliers and we are often one of those as our history makes us prominent.”
Consumers won’t find Pro-Box products on the shelves of discount retailers such as Sports Direct or high-street retailers like Argos either as Sussex says the company has a responsibility to serve its retail customers with products they can record strong sales with.
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“We couldn’t justify getting into bed with someone like Argos as it would adversely effect our retail partners. It tends to sell products designed for home use, whereas we want to target serious boxing enthusiasts who are more likely to buy from specialist sport shops.” Retailers are supplied direct from its three-storey facility in Gillingham, Kent, which has evolved from once being a thriving manufacturing facility to housing the volume of stock needed to support a modern supplier model, so Sussex says. Products are now manufactured overseas where costs are lower and the quality has improved. “We work closely with our overseas manufacturing partners to ensure quality,” he says. “We were the last boxing brand to be manufacturing in Britain. We had teams sewing products together, but as the workers retired we struggled to find replacements and the cost of manufacturing made it a natural progression for us to start using an international model. “We still do our own steel fabrication for rings and other hardware, but areas where products were once sewn together have now been transformed into warehousing to hold stock. We receive two containers a month and work hard to ensure products reach our retailers on time. “Everyone in the market is impatient now. They phone up and place orders that they want delivered tomorrow. This means we can’t afford not to have something in stock.
“The world has changed because of the internet and it means we have to be able to service our customers quickly. We hold around two-to-three times the amount of stock we would like, but we need it.”
Pro-Box has also acted as an OEM supplier for many UK boxing brands, badging up products with logos to suit, and remains a distributor for Adidas. It now puts a heavier focus on products carrying its own badge and is looking forward to continued growth in the market for boxing products. “It’s a very positive time to be involved with
boxing,” says Sussex. “Cage fighting has been
good for the sport. No-one realised
how it would grow interest in the sport but people are really into it and getting into training, which means they want kit.
“The health and leisure markets are growing the demand for equipment as well, with growing numbers of combat and boxercise classes. A lot of women are getting into the sport through these channels, opening up the sport to a new market. “The Olympics next year will help too. We have a few hopefuls in the UK, including girls for the first time, which will have a positive impact. And boxing clubs are getting involved by providing training facilities for overseas competitors. This means they want to offer the best environment they can and are investing in new equipment.” Pro-Box is looking to help retailers capitalise on the opportunities it sees for boxing by offering a starter package for trade to allow those thinking of stocking boxing products for the first time to experience the market.
Sussex says: “Boxing is relatively cheap to get into. For £500 you can have enough display products and stock to have a serviceable offering. We are offering a deal whereby we’ll cover a retailer’s costs as we want to encourage the market to take on boxing and stock it. It’s a no- lose situation for them as even if they sold the products at cost price they’d not lose out. “Our main priority is to look after retailers. And we want to work with retailers that want to add boxing to their offering and have an area dedicated to it in their store. We already get lots of repeat business, which is the kind of business we want.”
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