THE ERT INTERVIEW STEVE PUNTER
CURRICULUM VITAE
● 2000-2007 Sales manager at Groupe SEB
● 2007-2010 Account manager, Philips Consumer Lifestyle
● 2010-2013 Senior sales manager, Philips 18 ● 2013-2015
Global business manager, app-enabled products, Gibson Innovations (formerly WOOX Innovations)
● 2015-2016
Global business manager, headphones and then business leader, headphones, Gibson Innovations
● November 2016 Managing director of Magimix UK
Q: Magimix is famous for its food processors, but do you think you need to promote your other products, like toasters and coffee machines, more? Steve Punter: I think you’re right – we do. Part of the game plan in the coming years is to expand that realisation – to improve the strength of the product awareness, rather than to distract from our core area of competency in food prep. I’m not happy until every household that needs a Magimix food processor has one – then we can talk about the toaster, the coffee machine and the food slicer that complement it.
Q: How’s the market? SP: It’s relatively tough. However, at Magimix we’re not a volatile organisation – and so we can ride waves and don’t need to react to short-term trends. I don’t panic if five minutes of sales are lower than expected.
Christmas was a good trading period for Magimix, especially for our food processors, which saw double-digit growth. We’ve seen positive growth year on year and our market share is growing. The statistics speak for themselves – in food processors over £100, one in two machines
sold is a Magimix. I don’t even look below £100 – that’s the commodity market. Although the total market is declining, we’re seeing growth in higher price points – that’s important, because it means people are making more conscious decisions. That’s a positive for retailers in this tough economic climate. People are less susceptible to fads and fancy marketing and are making decisions because they have less money – it’s buy once and buy right. As we have multifunction machines – they do eight functions – that means eight [different] machines don’t have to be bought for 30 years. Do the maths – you’re literally able to save thousands of pounds by buying a Magimix food processor.
Q: What’s Magimix’s approach to retail? SP: We don’t sell direct – we’re one of the few brands that doesn’t. That’s down to the integrity of the brand. We’re not trying to cut out the retailer – I know that a lot of brands find it acceptable
to go direct to the consumer. We value our retail partners and the in-store experience that retailers can give. From what I see, retailers are very happy talking about Magimix because they’re not trying to falsely sell it, if they’ve had training. If anyone wants training, they can send me an e-mail – it’s
stevepunter@magimix.co.uk. I have a dedicated team of people who go
round stores, spending time educating staff on our machines and training them on what they do, how they work and how to merchandise and sell them.
Q: What are Magimix’s latest products? SP: We launched the Nespresso Vertuo large-cup coffee machine in October last year – it’s designed for the UK market, where eight out of 10 coffees drunk are in a mug. Coffee is now bigger than tea in the UK and we’re a nation of people who love it in mugs. It’s the first machine on the market – from Nespresso – that delivers that fulfilment. We’ve launched a power blender, which rolled
We don’t sell direct – we’re one of the few brands that doesn’t. We value the in-store experience retailers can give
out to wider distribution last month. That’s taking on board the growth of the blender and power blender markets – we’ve upped the wattage and we have 22,000rpm versus 15,000. It’s about getting a smoother finish, faster. We’re very proud that our machines are Quiet Mark approved – it’s a third-party endorsement. We’ve also launched Spiral Expert – the world’s
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