EPE International: Celebrating 20 years EPE International celebrates its 20th anniversary
From humble beginnings in Huddersfi eld, EPE International has become a highly successful company, and its commitment to brands, staff and customers remains as focused as ever. As the company reaches this milestone, Simon King sits down with EPE International’s chief executive, Noel Pamment; and managing director, Harry Singh
“At that time, I’d known Harry Singh since we were 20 years old; he was an apprentice and I had worked on an account in an electrical wholesaler, so I had worked closely with him over the years as a supplier and customer.”
Current distribution centre N
oel Pamment was managing director of Pik-A-Pak and, having set-up the Igenix brand, he was keen to work for himself, so left the business in August 2003, and EPE International was established on September 12, 2003. The name EPE is particularly special to Noel, as it is named after his daughter, Ella. Noel said: “I set-up EPE International –
Ella Pamment Enterprises – but I had to fi ght with the solicitor at the time because I’d chosen to have the word ‘international’ in the name.
“I wanted to import and I was told that I couldn’t have international in the company name, however, EPE International was successfully established.” At that time, Noel didn’t have any
premises and, despite his industry experience, no idea what he was going to do.
“I went off to China to meet people that I knew, and when I came back, I realised I didn’t have anywhere to put the stock and didn’t know how I was going to send it to out to retailers,” Noel said.
Noel told Harry his idea, showed him some samples in the boot of his car, and Harry joined EPE International. “We worked out of Harry’s old electrical contracting premises,” Noel said. “I was in the corner of an offi ce on the phone and then we decided that we needed to build a unit, at this point, the stock hadn’t even arrived. “We knocked down the existing small building to put a unit on and we worked from two 20-foot Portacabins on top of each other in Harry’s brother’s car park.” The fi rst brand that EPE International signed up was Wahl and that was followed into the stable by Kenwood and Morphy Richards.
“For companies like Breville, Russell Hobbs and Bosch, there were massive fi ghts even though I knew all of the people from where I’d previously worked,” Noel said.
“They were not interested, as there was so many other distributors in the market at the time. They felt that we would come in and disrupt the market, and it would upset everybody. Other than Wahl, Morphy Richards and Kenwood, nobody was prepared to give us an opportunity.” The next step in the company’s development was to move to new premises on Leeds Road in Huddersfi eld in 2007. “In 2010, we did a relaunch of the business and went from being an importer to branded distribution,” Noel said. “That was a massive turning point for the business and we got into areas of the market where people started to take us
EPE International Special | October/November 2022
Above left: Harry Singh Above right: Noel Pamment
Above: EPE Internatioanl has attended many trade shows
seriously. “They all lined up and saw us as a serious business,” Noel said. Harry said that up until 2010, EPE International had agents working on its behalf.
“However, we started building a sales
force, at a time where other companies were cutting back,” Harry said. Noel said that in recent times, EPE International has gone back to the fundamentals of where it was in 2010 – good quality brands and servicing customers well. “We want to invest more in good quality salespeople to look after those retailers,”
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