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Highlander
There's plenty of crossover between military equipment and camping, but with recent growth Highlander has decided to clearly mark the lines between the two fields. Moving forward, the military side will be known as Pro-Force, while Highlander remains the name to know in the outdoor side.
Barry Martin talked to SGB about the company's growth, and where they're heading...
SGB: There's some crossover in the two fields Highlander specialises in, isn't there?
Barry Martin: They work well together on many levels and cover quite a lot of markets in between; including countrysports like fishing, hunting and riding, and then there's the festivals etc...In fact we probably have one of the largest ranges in the outdoor industry when you take into account the two main catalogues; military & outdoor.
SGB: How big is the company, staff-wise?
BM: The company has continued to expand over the years and has had several locations in Edinburgh. As the brand grew and turnover grew with it, it became clear that we needed to find larger premises to keep up with demand. A new state of the art 80,000 sq ft. distribution centre was acquired on a five acre site in Livingston. The company now employs 30 + staff.
SGB: Has 2009 been a good year for you so far?
BM: We've done very well this year; in fact it's the biggest year we've ever had. It's the first year we've had our dedicated marketing team and it's allowed us to manage the introduction of a new brand image for the core Highlander brand and at the same time introducing the Pro-Force military brand to the trade.
The other key thing about Highlander is that we're one of the few companies in the trade that still provides a true wholesaling service to retailers allowing them to use us as a ‘one stop shop' for most of their outdoor and military product requirements.
SGB: You say there's a re-launch of the brand; where is the brand coming from and what's it become?
BM: The Highlander brand has evolved naturally and was essentially an outdoor brand developing from the owners' love for the outdoors & climbing. As students, they found that outdoor clothing and equipment was all very, expensive back then. Walking gear and rucksacks were often way out of their price range, so they started to work on affordable quality products to make them accessible to everyone. Since the early days, the original philosophy has been maintained to ensure that the company always offers quality gear and accessories at very competitive prices. The military ranges developed in parallel using a similar philosophy but originally evolved from the recycled military issue market. So essentially both Highlander and Pro-Force provide comprehensive ranges of quality gear at very competitive prices, and this will be our business model going forward as more and more customers look for better value. The recent tough trading and so called credit crunch have proved this philosophy to be commercially successful and probably accounts for much of our recent success.
SGB: What's your top seller on the outdoor side?
BM: Rucksacks in general are very popular and represent our biggest selling category in terms of value, but we're also very strong on sleeping bags and tents. In terms of units though, accessories are the biggest product categories and we have one of the widest ranges Europe, with comprehensive selections of accessories for lightweight campers, leisure campers, travellers, walkers, backpackers, festival goers etc.
SGB: You mentioned this is the first year you have had a dedicated marketing team; what effect has that had on the company?
BM: We've always had a marketing presence within the company, but it's not been a dedicated team, it's been an extension of sales. Now, with the restructure it allows the dedicated team to focus on the bigger picture and work more strategically to plan marketing campaigns systematically.
We're now doing everything from point of sale; a brand new website which will be launched at OTS; a full advertising campaign which will be starting at the beginning of next year; new trade catalogues, new retail catalogues, in fact everything we can do that will help our retailers close the sale.
SGB: What's new for 2010 then? Obviously the re-launch is going to be a huge part of that.
BM: We've got the new website. There's the new look for the Highlander brand, there's the launch of the Pro-Force brand and there's literally hundreds of new products. The new product highlights being Bamboo base layers at an unbelievable prices, a completely new daysack range, updated and upgraded sleeping bags, there's new footwear, new stoves and cookwear, and countless new accessory products.
