» Supplier Profile L THE FOR IN BUSINESS
ONG RUN A
BY KATHRYN KORCHOK
s a student at Toronto’s York University in 1988, Victor Proudian was less interest- ed in beer than in business.
His thirst was entrepreneurial, and he hungered to be somebody. Proudian had no money, but he had
a strong desire to succeed. He bor- rowed $500 and rented a 10’ x 10’ flea
The Treadmill Factory celebrates 27 years of innovation and success
market booth in north Toronto. He purchased customer returns—such as, cordless phones, toys, giftware, elec- tronics and exercise equipment—from the now-defunct retailer Consumers Distributing, refurbished everything at night after classes, and on weekends he sold them at the flea market. When he noticed that he was one of
the few vendors selling exercise equip- ment, he concentrated on refurbish- ing and reselling used steppers and
exercise bikes, and he added tread- mills to the mix at the request of his customers. “Not many people sold treadmills,
and only a few serviced them,” says Proudian, whose Armenian fam- ily moved to Canada from Lebanon when he was seven. “And when ser- vicing treadmills, I noticed that most were flawed in their electrical design. Manufacturers would simply replace parts without addressing the specific problem. I wanted to find the root of the problem.” Proudian, whose hobby was elec-
tronics, created his own electrical boards to work with the machines he refurbished. He befriended engineers who worked at large treadmill manu- facturers and learned how to service the machines more efficiently and cost-effectively. “Since I’m a perfectionist with
believer in the quote, ‘The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low prices has faded from memory’.”
“I’m a true
Victor Proudian president The Treadmill Factory
42 Fitness Business Canada May/June 2015
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