Building Gymshark Into a Billion Dollar Brand

Dy store. This will go out today as well. So, in with a happy customer for Gymshark.

Post ready to go. I'm Ben, and I love to make things. And one of those things is Gymshark, which I created when I was 19 years old.

>> This is Ben Francis handmade. >> Another time I'd spend all my day at university. Then after that, I'd deliver pizzas for Pizza Hut. And any time in between the two, I'd spend in the gym and working on Gymshark. Incredible speed of production.

>> I remember going to Body Power around this time and just walking around and seeing sort of the bodybuilders, the more I guess it was a little bit more boring than what it is now, and thinking that this expo is missing something huge. So I went straight to the show office and I just said to them like, "What can we afford? What can we get? You have to be here next year." And I remember literally emptying the bank account on the floor space for Body Power the following year. The following year was spent just non-stop work again just packaging orders, printing, sewing, just non-stop custom making product.

Whilst I was working, I was absolutely obsessed with YouTube. I remember watching Matt Ogus, Chris Lovato, Jeff Seid, Lex, Alan, just watch them all the time. And as massive fans, we decided to send them the Gymshark product. At the time, no one else was doing this. Now it's called influencer marketing, but at the time it just came totally natural to us. We invited Matt, Chris, Jeff, Alan, Lex to the Body Power Expo. They all said yes, and there was nothing that could prepare us for what we were about to experience at this expo. We didn't even realize it, but at the time we were revolutionizing the way that expos were done in this industry.

So my first expo with Gymshark was in 2014, and I hadn't been to an expo before. So I didn't really know what to expect, and obviously I knew Gymshark. I knew it was doing really well, and I was really excited to be part of it. But I didn't quite get it until the doors opened at this expo and hundreds of people are running through this expo past all these other brands to get to our stand. They closed the stand down within like 2 hours because it was that busy, lines everywhere trying to get on the Gymshark stand. And it wasn't necessarily just because we were making really good product, but just because we had the best athlete poster. We'd really built a connection with the consumer where because we were the consumer, we were showing up in such an authentic way that they just wanted to be part of the brand. And I think that was what we realized really early on. If we look after the community, the brand will sort of look after itself. >> Over the next few years, tons happened.

We kept creating the product that we loved. We went on a huge Expo World Tour. Loads of staff joined Gymshark because we were growing so fast.

>> So this is the part of my job where I get to see my work pay off. This is the Gymshark stand being built. Now, this is all the stuff shipped over from the warehouse back in Birmingham. We're trying to get it all into the stand. 2 hours, 3 hour queue, maybe it's going to be absolutely unfortunate for any stands around us because they're going to get our queues wrapped around them like a snake.

>> I've never been to an expo before and I'm genuinely astounded. Guys have always told me it's crazy when Gymshark do an expo. Doors have been open for about 10 minutes, but our lines aren't even here yet. Absolutely.

>> Busy. So busy today. It's a joke. Look how many people are here. At an expo and we have already sold out.

>> He's been having a running clock and he's been waiting. We're at 3 hours 51 minutes and stop.

>> Who's ready for some Gymsharks? We're throwing out Gymsharks. WHO DO YOU LOVE?

>> WHO DO YOU LOVE? >> We've done the expo and we were really proud of what we've done at the expo, but at expos there's always a large natural audience. You never know how many people are just happening upon your stand or you're looking at your business or your brand or your product because they were at the expo and how many actually decided to go to the event for your business. Essentially, the whole idea of the world tour came about. It was after one of the expos that we did. We sat down in the office afterwards and we all sat around and we thought that it's not good enough that someone has to go first into the expo, wait 6 hours to only spend a few minutes with the Gymshark team. The world tour gives everyone an opportunity to make real connections and spend real quality time with each other.

>> 10 minutes for the meet up. It just starts pouring rain outside. So, we've got a bunch of fans up there and we don't want to let them down. So, we're going to go tackle this rain Gymshark style. >> How long you been driving to get here, dude? >> 40 hours. Man, >> half of Parliament Square. Given how many tourists come here are wearing Gymshark, there must be about 150 people sat here waiting for you to arrive. I think Gymshark is famous. >> Gymshark. >> That was absolutely insane. >> That was like expo level crowd.

>> There was like you I couldn't even tell like how far the line stretched back. There was a legion of people. >> It was the wildest thing flying across the world and seeing so many people turn up wearing our logo. It was a real pinch me pivotal moment where I realized that we truly were global as a brand.

>> I wish I could say that this was part of a real broader strategy, but it sort of wasn't.

>> I think me and Ben were absolutely enamored with New York. We'd done a meet up there not long before it had gone really, really well. We'd been on a walk together. There's a retail space that's up for rent. We were saying we should do like some sort of event there. Might not sound like much now, but watch this turn into something.

>> So, what did it turn into? >> It turned into Gymshark's first ever independent event. In other words, not doing an expo space that somebody else is organizing, but our first ever time saying, "Hey, we're a clothing brand, but we're putting an event on. You should all come out to it." >> Here you go. How cool is that? March 2017. >> Looks amazing. Looks so good. I'm in New York 2 days before we open, sat in the first ever Gymshark store. Today is the first time we've been able to make this dream a reality. A store totally planned and created by Gymshark staff. This marks a new chapter in the story of Gymshark. Gymshark is so much more than the product. It's about the people, the team, and the athletes. And that feeling of inspiration you get after you've been to a meetup, an expo or an event. Knowing that many of the fans struggle to get to some of the few expos that we do each year, we wanted to give you guys the opportunity to be with the Gymshark family without the inconveniences that come with some of the expos such as the travel and the cost. So, that's why we're here. And this also marks our first ever athlete collaboration. And I'm so happy that we're doing it with Nikki. Nikki is actually the first Gymshark women's athlete, been around since the first Gymshark women's product launched 3 years ago. She's been a huge influence in the Gymshark women's brand.

>> I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have literal romantic feelings for New York City. Something about it just kind of calls me in. It's something in the air. There's like an ambition and aliveness.

>> I think it was actually Nikki's idea to do it in New York. I think she loved New York. She had a load of fans in New York. G

>> Who's ready for some gym sharks? We're throwing out gym sharks. WHO DO YOU LOVE?

>> WHO DO YOU LOVE? >> We've done the expose and we were really proud of what we've done at the expose, but at expose there's always a a large natural audience. You never know how many people are just happening upon your

stand or you're looking at your business or your brand or your product because they were at the expo and how many actually decided to go to the event for your business. Essentially, the whole idea of the world tour came about. It

was after one of the expos that we did. We sat down in the office afterwards and we all sat around and we thought that it's not good enough that someone has to go first into the expo, wait 6 hours to

only spend a few minutes with the Gym Shark team. The world tour gives everyone an opportunity to make real connections and spend real quality time with each other.

>> 10 minutes for the meet up. It just starts pouring rain outside. So, we've got a bunch of fans up there and we don't want to let them down. So, we're going to go um tackle this rain gym

start style. >> How long you been driving to get here, dude? >> 40 hours. Man, >> half of Parliament Square. Given how many tourists come here are wearing Gym Shark, there must be about 150 people sat here waiting for you to arrive. I

think Gym Shark is famous. >> Gym Shark. >> That was absolutely insane. >> That was like expo level crowd.

>> There was like you I couldn't even tell like how far the line stretched back.

There was a legion of people. >> It was the wildest thing flying across the world and seeing so many people turn up wearing our logo. It was a real pinch me pivotal moment where I realized that we truly were global as a brand.

>> I wish I could say that this was part of a real broader strategy, but it sort of wasn't.

>> I think me and Ben were absolutely enamored with New York. We'd done a meet up there not long before it had gone really, really well. We'd been on a walk together. There's a retail space that's up for rent. We were saying we should do

like a some sort of event there. Might not sound like much now, but watch this turn into something.

>> So, what did it turn into? >> It turned into Gym Shark's first ever independent event.

In other words, not doing an expo space that somebody else is organizing, but our first ever time saying, "Hey, we're a clothing brand, but we're putting an event on. You should all come out to it." >> Here you go. How cool is that? March

2017. >> Looks amazing. Looks so good. I'm in New York 2 days before we open, sat in the first ever Gym Shark store. Today is the first time we've been able to make this dream a reality. A store totally planned

and created by Gym Shark staff. This marks a new chapter in the story of Gym Shark. Gym Shark is so much more than the product. It's about the people, the team, and the athletes. and that feeling of inspiration you get after you've been

to a meetup, an expo or an event. Knowing that many of the fans struggle to get to some of the few expose that we do each year, we wanted to give you guys the opportunity to be with the Gym Shark

family without the inconveniences that comes with some of the expos such as the travel and the cost. So, that's why we're here. And this also marks our first ever athlete collaboration. And I'm so happy that we're doing it with

Nikki. Nikki is actually the first Gym Shark women's athlete, been around since the first Gym Shark women's product launched 3 years ago. She's been a huge influence in the Gym Shark women's brand.

>> I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have literal romantic feelings for New York City. Something about it just kind of calls me in. It's something in the air. There's like a ambition and aliveness.

>> I think it was actually Nikki's idea to do it in New York. I think she loved New York. She had a load of fans in New York. Gym Shark had a load of customers in New York. So, we thought it would be

the right place to do it. >> We've been visited a few agencies, pop-up store agencies, who we said to them, can you help us with this? and they said, "No, you need this permit and that permit and you're never going to do

it that soon and all this stuff." So, obviously, we turned around to Mitch who's a bit more entrepreneurial, like, "We want to do this in X weeks." And Mitch was like, "Yeah, I can make it happen." We hadn't done anything in New

York before, so we took a big risk. And also, at that time, pop-ups weren't really a thing. So, getting a landlord to commit to a short-term lease, anything further out than say 6 weeks was near enough possible.

>> So, we ended up calling around quite a few of them and saying, "I know you looking to lease the store out, but would you be able to lease it to us just for a week or so?" and we would have the

pop-up open just on over the weekend. >> So, we had to ship product, ship all the equipment to this store from the UK before we'd even signed the lease.

If you'd seen how we put that first pop-up store together, we like bought stock over in suitcases and boxes and hung it up ourselves. Some of those terrible rollup banners that you have when you go to like a trade show, it was

very, very basic. And this was also before Shopify had their mobile POS. So, we had to make a web page dedicated to this store. I think it was like gymshop.mmer.com that only had the stock of the store in

it. So when we were checking customers out, it was they checking out on a website. Never done anything like this before. We' only announced it on social media. It was the first time that we didn't have the support of like a wider

trade show or all these other brands going to be there. So we really didn't know what to expect.

>> There's your name. >> There's my name. >> Your name, mate. >> It was such an overwhelming feeling like walking into the store that so many people had put work and effort into and the time like we've been working on this

for over a year. When I saw this store for the first time, it was a really weird feeling that I've not felt since some of our first exposed years ago. And now I'm sat here in store 2 days before

we open and I've got no idea what to expect. Friday night I had I had so many nightmares. Like the whole time I couldn't sleep. I was like, "What if no one shows up on Saturday?" And I didn't

know what to expect coming into it. The morning of that event, I was walking over to the store at say 7:00 a.m. We were opening at 10:00 and we'd only left the store like quite late the night before cuz we were like ironing stuff

and putting stuff on rails. And as I'm walking across Soho in New York, which is now a real common ground for us, but I didn't know then I was a British kid in Manhattan. I was thinking, damn, it's

really busy in Soho. And then as I'm walking towards the store, I'm realizing a lot of these people are wearing Gym Shark. And then literally as soon as I get within eyesight of the block that it was on, I called Ben and I was like,

"You need to come over to the store. and he was like, "Why?" Thinking like something had gone wrong, like somebody had broken in or we didn't have any stock or something that >> I will never ever forget getting the cab

to the store early in the morning. I can remember everything. I can remember being in the car. I can remember driving over the coboard street, the noise that the cobwebs make against the tires.

And we were coming down the road that way. It wasn't until we got like two blocks away, we just saw this like sea gym shark. He already has a massive line.

>> We got there hours before opening and even then the cues were going all the way around the block. It was absolutely huge. It was incredible.

The queue itself was like from there down to end of the block right down to the end of the road. It was crazy all down the back.

>> So I walked straight up to the person at the front of the line and said, "What time did you get here?" And they were like 9:00 p.m. last night and we'd left at 8:00 p.m. the night before. So we

missed this person by an hour and they flown from Australia to be there. >> 3 2 1 >> And we had this line all the way around the block. And I remember just like sort of looking at each other and thinking

this is going to be the start of something special. >> Prep. >> Ready? Nervous. I'm like more nervous than he is for I don't know why.

>> Why are we so nervous? >> What's your thoughts, mate? >> It's wicked. Didn't expect this line at all. It was so wildly successful. I was blown away.

News crews were coming out and they were filming it. >> We had like all cars put up all day asking what the hell is going on here. 3 2 1.

At the time we were next door to a much larger competitor in the sportsear market and they thought it was them but it wasn't. It was our cues.

>> We opened the doors I think at like 10:00 and we were here until midnight making sure every single person locked in and everyone got through that day.

It's crazy. >> So the lineup is still humongous and it's like all the way down the street and it's legit just wrapped around the block.

>> Yeah, it was really cool. Really was cool to be from the UK and to have the business the size it was at that time to be having a pop-up store in New York. It was just absolutely incredible and it

was such a massive massive success for us to know that I guess so many people were interested in the Gym Shark brand as a British brand but out in the US and that was that was the beginning of a

sort of a new era for us cuz that's when we started to get the almost the bug for what this sort of offline world could look like for Gym Shark. It was that first event. It was that first pop up on

Mercer Street that's what certainly got us excited about the offline opportunity for us. Like if we hadn't done this, I think our route to retail would have been very different to what it was. This gave us the confidence to take over

retail unit, stand on our own two feet and put products in front of the consumer. It was the very first step on Gym Shark in real life. Zero strategy, super organic, super gut feel, super entrepreneurial, just just this gut feel

that we thought we could do something incredible. We knew the culture really well because we lived in it every single day and that was it. And it paid off.

>> It's funny. So me and null, I think it was after that event, we was walking down Broadway and we were saying at the time, you know, imagine if we could build a presence out here in the US.

Imagine if we could open an office. Imagine if we could have a store. The idea was to bring the expo to you, to bring Gym Shark to your city. This store represents the next chapter in the Gymshot story. Us bringing Gym Shark to

everyone across the world. We've got the lineup for the popup stores that we're going to do. We've done New York. Obviously, we're in London now, Paris, Los Angeles. You've been setting this store up for like how many days now? How many weeks? How

long's it been? >> This is the store the day before it opens. >> Totally empty warehouse and we got the keys for it. There's still a lot of work to do.

>> This place is huge. You guys are nowhere near done. Oh no. >> In there like trying to steam clothes and decorate the floors.

>> Athlete section is up. It's looking really nice already. This is the most not ready store I've ever seen.

>> This is our function. This is where all the action happens. This is where all the goodies are at. The POS is in. We're almost ready to go. Final preparations before the pre-launch later this evening.

>> It's been a mental 2 days. I'm sort of I don't know if tons of people are going to come or if no one's going to come.

>> All right, so we're about to leave to the store and look at all these people.

Oh my god. WOW. >> 3 2 1 GO. Oh my god, the amount of people.

>> It was incredible. It sort of blows my mind that there's so many people.

>> Cheers to pop-ups >> to pop-up stores. It's weird like the way that we're transitioning as a brand given the platform that we have created for ourselves. It would be it would be rude for us to not try and take it to

that next level. Try to go all the way and try to be the biggest and the best fitness brand in the world.

>> Stuff was supposed to arrive today. Get all set up and ready for the weekend.

It's not here today. >> How you feeling? I'm a bit stressed actually. >> Rails but no.

>> Come on then, boys. >> It wasn't until I remember the point. It was in Canada where we did Lift Toronto.

>> Are we ready? >> Ready. we've ever had for this store. >> I told you guys it was going to be crazy and nobody believed me.

>> First half of the day, I think we're going to want about four people in the change room cuz we're just going to expect this women's, especially the women's stuff, to absolutely fly out. We open the doors up for the customers and

normally what would happen is they would run for the athletes and then they'd go to the product afterwards.

But >> this particular event, they ran for the product first. And I remember seeing thinking that's that's not that's uncommon to see that unbelievable sell for a stock. We sold through about 85% of stock. That's in one day. We've never

ever done that before. We've actually just consolidated everything. We got four rails left to stop.

>> You guys look great in your gym, Shark, by the way. >> Thank you.

>> Like you guys look like you can be up here taking pictures. >> OH, I say we lift, you say the city. We lift >> the city.

>> We lift >> the city. After that, we did lift Manchester and the same thing happened again there where they ran for the product first, then they went to the athletes.

>> Why don't you just take the whole store with you? >> Wait, it's not that much, right?

>> What do you think of this t-shirt? >> Insane. It looks so nice. I want to make my own t-shirt.

>> We're just trying to manage all the cues at the moment because there's a lot of people here today. So, we don't want anyone to leave disappointed.

>> That's not to say that they didn't want to see the athletes, but we were making really, really good product. It was exclusive. It's really good quality and they couldn't wait to get their hands on it.

>> Woo! People are excited. Everyone enjoy it. >> Yeah. >> Amazing, bro. Amazing. >> That then made me think, well, can the brand stand on its own two feet in a retail unit without the support of the athletes? And what would that look like?

What we said was we want to open up a store. So, let's try a longerterm pop-up because we don't even ever do pop-ups for sort of two days over the weekend, 3 days maximum. So, we said what we're

going to do is we're going to do another shop in Covent Garden. We're going to open it for at least a month and we're going to run it and we're going to work out how to do this on a longer term

basis. So, Covent Garden, I'd say, was our first pop-up store in the traditional sense of the term. When we say pop-up store, we mean 48 hours. We go in, we'd blow the doors off it. We have athletes, we have all this like craziness, it's

more of an event than actual pop-up store. Coven Garden was our first attempt at that like a traditional pop-up store. So, we didn't activate anywhere near as much. We weren't bringing the athletes in and bringing all the noise. And I think in the same

way that in that New York event with Nikki, we were learning how to do our own events. I think here we were learning about the economics of a store.

So, I remember Mitch really wanted to do that to test and learn how much it would cost us, what we think we would see back from it in that limited time. We made the retail fixtures at a scaffold and we

spray painted it white. It was really scrappy and entrepreneurial. We just wanted to see can the products stand on its own two feet in a retail unit. At this point we're thinking, okay, maybe retail is on the cards now, but we want

to see what it does for that limited time in London and then one day we might be able to open our own store there.

>> We opened it and before we knew it, CO hit. >> Corona virus. >> A virus. Corona virus >> from the virus.

>> The corona virus virus. the coronairus outbreak will present significant challenges. >> And at that point, everything changed.

So we we had to close the store. Lockdowns happened. No one was out on the streets. No one was out shopping in stores. It just didn't make any sense for us whatsoever. We have to go and close that store down a month in during

a time where there was nobody in London. So I remember sending two of the guys down there and they saying how creepy it was. There was nobody around.

>> That definitely caused a lot of uncertainty internally. What will coming out of lockdown look like? What will physical retail look like? And when will it happen?

almost like if you believe in acts of God, not only was that potentially a sign to be like don't do it, the other thing that was happening was at that time everyone got really worried for a few weeks and then the adoption of

e-commerce just did that. Every ecom brand saw crazy numbers during that time because obviously people had more money because they were sitting around and they weren't going out as much. They were shopping online because they couldn't go into actual stores. So ecom

brands really really won. Ecom was flying during co no one was going out and shopping. Everyone was shopping online. So, you have to ask yourself, well, why would we look at stores? Now, >> joining me is the founder of the gymwear

company, Gym Shark, Ben Francis. Uh, things haven't been that bad for your company, have they? Tell us tell us how it's been.

>> From a commercial point of view, this this last quarter has actually been one of our our best quarters. We're just seeing a great demand at the moment.

>> So, then our website starts to do really well and this this this narrative emerged, especially in the world of ecom and I think in commerce in general that was like e-commerce adoption has just leapt forward 10 years. is the death of

the high street. People start dropping out of their stores. They couldn't pay the lease. They just started bailing.

Boards were going up. E-commerce is now the thing. It's just catapulted us forward in terms of how many people shop online.

We have this and we always have had this this this real gut feeling of like zigg when others zag.

Ben texts me saying do me a favor question mark. And when someone normally text saying do me a favor, I think they mean can you grab my laptop charger or can I borrow some sugar or write one of

these random things and he text back saying skip all the test and learn go straight for the flagship. And I was like what? I know we you know brave wers are scared and all that but that seems like a lot. Now we always thought that

on a long-term basis Gym Shark to be a globally iconic brand to be the sort of brand that we want it to be. It has to be available online and offline. We believe that even during co it wasn't an

obvious thing because no one had been through this before. No one knew how long it would go on for. No one really knew what the long-term ramifications would be.

>> Now, bear in mind the plan up until that point as we'd seen it was open a pop-up store, maybe one day do like a 3,000 square ft first ever retail store in like shortage on the outskirts of London

and then one day move into flagships and all this kind of stuff. >> At the same time, at this point, we were then looking for an office and null and a handful of other people were wandering around London. And it was on that trip

they noticed that there was a store available on Regent Street. Region Street, arguably the most iconic shopping street in the world. Definitely the most iconic British shopping street in the world. You've got people bailing on their leases. Me and Mitch go down

and we're walking around it and it was a huge space and it was terrifying. And I turned around and I looked and you've got like the arch of Regent Street that goes down all these incredible buildings. It's the most British looking

thing you've ever seen. We often talk about the fact we want to create an iconic British brand. And I literally stood there looking at that and sort of feeling Regent Street out. So maybe 2 weeks later we bring Ben down. We tour

around the store. We're looking at, oh yeah, it's nice. It's big. Is this where the change is go? Get down to that spot.

Literally put him on it. Looked at him. I was like, we're going to be an iconic British brand. There's only one street we can be on. And I can see him looking around. He was like, yeah, we're doing

it. >> I don't think I was ever prepared for how difficult it was or how difficult it would be to move a purely e-commerce business into an e-commerce business that also has stores.

>> The store build itself was was tricky. listed building center of London. We needed swing tickets on products. We didn't have VM guidelines, training guidelines. Hangers, what do they look like? What sort of hangers did we want?

All these little decisions that actually take an absolute army of people to try and solve. So, it became this businesswide project. How does Gym Shark go from ecom to bricks and mortar?

>> Inevitably, there will always be things that go wrong. We announced a launch date.

The same day, we get a phone call from the contractor on site saying that the site had been closed down.

So we pushed that back and we'd already communicated that to customers. That was really really tricky just in terms of managing our business. We've had to learn quite a lot and we still are learning as we go.

>> We've got a hell of a lot of work left to do. >> The store launches are the best representation of the Gym Shark brand.

Ultimately, we only get one chance to do that. store officially opens in 45 minutes.

And apparently people have been outside for a few hours now with sort of deck chairs and things like that. There's a bit of a queue forming.

That is so cool. I'm so excited for today. We took the athletes on tour of it the day before. At the end, we gave like a bit of a tour, me and Ben, and I said to them, "While we're now Gym Shark and you

guys are the Gym Shark athletes and all that kind of stuff, at the end of the day, we're just fans of you guys. cuz we used to watch you on YouTube before any of this stuff started. And I gave them,

it was almost like a thank you. I was like, "Thank you for doing what you've done for us so that we could do this." We talked about bringing the culture of bodybuilding and weightlifting to Regent Street. That's your culture that you

guys built, right? I'm super proud. I know Ben's. >> What do I do? >> Just cut the ribbon.

>> Just literally cut the ribbon. I haven't got a loud voice. Leave it now. [ __ ] myself.

I was just blown away. I absolutely loved it. I'm still to me even now it was still one of my favorite days.

Friends, family, everyone was there. Athletes, staff, everyone that had worked so hard to make it happen. Region Street is for Apple. It's for Burberry.

It's for some really, really impressive businesses. The fact that we were stood amongst them shoulderto-shoulder was wild to me. This brummy ecombased thing that could have easily been nothing as much as it could have been something stood shoulder-to-shoulder with some of

the most iconic brands on the planet. For us to bring squat racks, to bring kettle bells, to bring references to leg day and all these different things to an iconic shopping street and for us to make it a norm. Like now it's your

average Brit like yeah of course it's a gym shop store. Like how cool was that?

That's the stuff that when I'm an old man I'll be really really [ __ ] proud that we did. People assume that starting out the business or the brand we had this massive massive grand long-term vision where it was actually quite the

opposite. It was very much incremental steps like let's do this in the next 6 months, let's do this in the next 12 months. And granted, there's a longerterm dream, but I think this was very much beyond that to be honest. And

it's just this is beyond I think what 19year-old Ben would have thought would have been possible. There's something about e-commerce. It still feels like a bit of a punt. That's a very English word, but a bit of a risk. you see

something online, you're like, "Yeah, but is that actually a good product or is it just a good photo?" And even an ecom brand at our scale still suffers with that. Yet, when we opened Region Street, there was something about having

our name up on a building and on a street as legitimate as that, which I think really legitimized the brand for people, but also the fact they could come in and do the classic test of which you can't do online, which sent our new

customer numbers in London through the roof from the second the store opened. It really does do something else that e-commerce doesn't do. The two things aren't created equal. It's not online store or shop. the two things can play

really different roles and complement each other really really nicely. >> The store's flown. The store has been incredibly successful and that that's not to say it hasn't been very very difficult. It's really helped elevate the Gym Shark brand and really show that

we do have a shot here of being a a globally iconic brand. In order for us to really scale our retail footprint, we really wanted to try what we would call a core store. So, a smaller store generally in a shopping center.

3 2 1. >> We blew the doors off numbers wise. We doubled our target and so like we were just seeing, wow, all the signals are telling us this is working really well.

>> And again, it's been a real big sort of learning curve for us. It's making sure we've got the right inventory, the right stock there all the time. The customer can get what they want there. I think the the long term for our sort of store

strategy, I think, is going to be really really positive. So when we first looked at expanding into Dubai in the at the Middle East, we did a trip and we looked around the malls, we looked around the gyms. We

really wanted to get a good idea of what the region is like. Specifically at the time, what fitness in Dubai was like.

Now obviously Dubai is so heavily influenced by the UK and US. I think I thought I was going to go out there and see a very similar fitness scene. We had a chaperon who knew all the gym owners

and he's like the guy on the scene out there take us around and show us. I gave him a brief and he nailed the brief. MMA gyms, we saw bodybuilding gyms, we saw like F45 style concepts, we saw spin

stuff, we saw high rocks, saw all these different stuff. And after day one, the thing that occurred to me was, damn, the opportunity is huge here.

>> It was really obvious to us just how rapidly the area was growing. We did a run, I think, on one of the days and the amount of people that were running down the beachfront was outstanding. The gyms

were all completely rammed. The quality of the gyms and the equipment was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

>> I thought there was brands out there that had stood up and represented the culture. They haven't. It really, really felt like based on what people were wearing, shoes, they were wearing them with everything. It felt like the UK or

Germany 15 years ago before we stood up and said, "Hey, we represent you." And then they started wearing us. Then the next day we go out and do the retail tour and we see what people are spending and how they're shopping and how huge

IRL shopping is to the Emiratis and also to the expats that live in Dubai. And I like damn these two things combined, the fact that no one's really represented the culture yet and the fact they love to shop in the way they do, that could

be really, really powerful. LTM manage Gym Shark in the region and they came to us and they said, "We've got a store in the Dubai Mall. We think it's going to be really good." And obviously I was doing back flicks. I've

been to the Dubai Mall a fair few times before. It's the biggest mall in the world. It is literally like a city in itself.

>> What a wonderful day. Lovely temperature, sun's out, it's perfect. >> Have you seen the venue? Incredible. We were sitting in Birmingham airport maybe two nights before and I get a message from someone on our team and it's a

picture of the Burj Khalifa and there's like 60 or 70 people stood in front of it all headto toe in Gym Shark all like smiling. So I send back like question marks like what's this? Dave on our team

replies saying this is your Dubai Mall store team. We've had a lot of big business moments, but for whatever reason, this picture of all these plethora of different people from different backgrounds, all speak different languages, all representing Gym Shark in Dubai was wild to me.

First international store opens tonight, uh, 6:00, just up here outside the Burge, which I don't think there's a more stunning location than this. Can't wait. I think it's going to be great.

And I'm just really pleased to be here because the amount of support that we've had in the region has been outstanding.

It's a massive moment. You want to be a globally iconic brand and to do that you have to be truly global and I think this is it for us.

>> You look at sales numbers, you look at Instagram followers, you look at all the sort of quantifiable signals that you can about how the brand could do in the region. Partner we work with out there was talking about there's a huge

appetite for Gym Shark. We know that. But there is still a little bit of us that are like, "Yeah, but we're still just some brumies from the other side of the world." I've been a fan of yours since like 2018. I could be the only

sort of person in the gym wearing wearing the gear. I know the formula now to have a successful event in the US or the UK. I understand the market, language, the culture, everything. Dubai was an unknown for us. So, we're in a

green room beforehand. Myself, Ben, and the Gym Shark athletes that we had with us. And I'm sitting with Ryan Terry. And while I'm sitting down just chatting with Ryan, the guy I mentioned earlier, who was our tour guide when we first

came out to Dubai went live on Instagram, I just saw such and such has gone live. So, I clicked on it and I could not believe the crowds.

Are we ready to listen up Jim Shark to buy more? >> That first opening day was incredible. I I'll never forget standing there cutting the ribbon as we opened the store and there were people all through the whole

of the corridor all the way up on the floor above as well to land there in a in a location as iconic as the Dubai Mall then a location as iconic as the where the Gym Shark store is in the Dubai Mall. And to have

that many people there just to see, experience, and feel the brand was absolutely incredible.

>> It was just an incredible day. And again, the reaction ever since from everyone that's in the UAE, lives in the UAE, travels through the UAE, and shops in the Dubai Mall. It it's been outstanding. Sometimes we have these

incredible achievements and then the next day we've forgotten about and it's back to work, right? We're doing back to meetings, back to normal stuff, and we just don't care that we achieved. That was one of those ones where I thought, I

really want to spend some time and just dwell in this, dwell in what we've pulled off. This is a serious milestone achievement for something that was a pizza boy and an idea 12 years ago.

What you find with ecom, you can test something and if it doesn't work, you can you can scale it back and you can try something new and you constantly try and improve. And I think that's what we've tried to apply in the right way to

our retail strategy. The whole process for us has been very iterative. We've made a ton of mistakes, more mistakes than probably you'll ever know, but we've also learned as we've gone. And every store that we open will just get

better and better and better and stronger and stronger. My dream is for this to be a 100red-year brand. I want this brand to last longer than than I do. For us, we have to be successful in the US. We opened up this

popper because we we really wanted to sort of test it, right? So, we've never ran anything like this in in the US. And this store has been so successful. I've been so so happy with it. One of the

reasons that I'm here this week as well is because I would absolutely love to have a permanent location here in New York. And again, because of the success of this store and because of the amazing people that have come through the doors

every day, it's really given us confidence to now look into that. Fingers crossed at some point, we could be looking at a really nice permanent store in New York.

>> When do you think that would be? >> I think for hopefully soon. New York is the best. I love New York. I mean, we've got so many memories of New York, from the World Tour to the pop-ups

and working there over the years. It is such a special city, and there's so many special things that have happened, I guess, to me and the Gym Shark there. It just feels like the right place for us to open our our first

American flagship. I think if you'd have told me when I first joined Gym Shark that within 10 to 12 years, we would have a flagship store not only in London, but also in New York, not sure I would have believed

you. Um, this one was probably a little less opportunistic than Regent Street was. So, Regent Street, we found ourselves with this opportunity to have a flag. This one was more intentional.

We began searching probably 2 years ago for this now. We had a space that we really liked. We started to broker a deal on it and the deal actually fell through.

At the time, it felt like a massive blow. Like a a lot of us were really disappointed the fact that we that store wasn't going to happen for us.

If you're a newcomer coming to New York or you're not say a local, you would say Fifth or Broadway. So, of course, we were looking at those two areas. Then this one got shown to us and at the time

we were a little bit like not quite sure, not familiar enough with the area.

Is it going to get the traffic that we needed to get? Um, and is it is it off the beaten track?

We talk about taking risks at Gym Shark and that is something we've always done.

When I think back to the first expo we ever did at Body Power, Ben put every single penny he had into that expo and it paid off big time for us and then the next year we signed up to eight more.

That risk takingaking and that bravery and taking a gamble when perhaps others wouldn't is what led us to where we are today.

The initial bunch of nerves comes in when you sign a lease and you're committed to having this store for the next 10 years.

>> There are a few things that scare me about retail. I think being in the right place and making sure the brand shows up in the right place surrounded by the right neighbors because retail really puts you in context. Retail is a

significant investment. It is a big bet to place. We need to we need to make sure we get it right. Essentially, >> that deal that fell through that felt really tough at the time was definitely the right thing to do because this

building's really special. Firstly, it's four floors all above ground, which in New York actually is quite hard to come by.

>> I mean, is this in a good way. It looks so much bigger from the outside, doesn't it? And you come in and it's not huge, but it just shows we're getting amazing curb appeal for the money. It feels

really iconic cuz like the big old windows as well and the old brick building in New York, it feels proper.

We've got a roof terrace that no other brand has got and we can invite our customers and community there. The building itself has got great visibility. It's on a great cross-section so you get tons of traffic.

>> Like you obviously got J the Juice, three kids stores, Equinox there, >> NYU's down there. So like our consumer is here.

>> This is really cool. I'm more excited now than I was before. >> I think it's going to be really really good. It's a genuine flagship.

>> When will this be finished then? >> So we're targeting the end of September.

That's that's our target. Loads of things making me nervous. Especially when it comes to things like this. There's a thousand things that can go wrong and could go wrong.

>> The problem is what we thought we were going to do is change slightly. And with that, we are delayed. We don't know how long we're delayed by, but that's what we're trying to work it out now. So, we

just need to get this place open. We need to get the build continue to run because every day we don't have it open.

Obviously, we're not only incurring the cost, but we're also losing the revenue of the product that we don't sell through it. So, we've come here today and it looks great. We've made really, really good progress, but now we need to

really pull together and make sure that in the next few months we get this store open and flying. This is very much the color theme for New York, but it's nice to see that start to come through. I

guess obviously between now and the next few months, it's going to completely change. >> I think the opening will be well, given it's in New York, I don't think it'll disappoint cuz New York never does.

I'm a little bit nervous, but not because I haven't got faith in the store. I think the amount of work that the teams have put in to bring this to life. It's absolutely set up for success. But 2 days out from a store

opening, you always get those nerves. Whether it's a store or an event or any big band moment, it's just the anticipation of just want to get it done. Now, >> literally opening this morning 10:00, so we're opening in about 10 minutes. The

queue's getting longer. Even just coming here and meeting the lads that queued out overnight and slept here from 7:00 last night, drove down from Maine to be here this morning with their Onyx box and here to get all their product and

meet the athletes. It's um it's really really special. It's a really amazing moment. >> I want to thank all of you for coming out here and being a part of it because without you there is no Gym Shark and

without you guys we can't say we're Gym Shark and we do gym. >> We brought the legacy of this space back together. So this building was built in 1913. This used to be an animal hospital. We restored it to its glory

and then make the inside look at the outside. So bring New York back to the space. I personally love the laundromat on top. Any New Yorker knows no one have a washing machine in their house. This space is so tall with great height. Can

you feel it? The train's going through right now. >> Yes. Yeah. >> I love that.

>> Right. This is this >> gym shark New York. How are we feeling? >> To do this and to have our first ever flagship here is it's a real surreal moment for me. It's a real pinch me moment because it's just it's something

that's been 12 years in the making. From that first ever trip out to today to, you know, the pop-ups that we did on Mercer, the opening our office here and and building our brand here. Tim Store is here.

Be this feels like a milestone moment for the brand in New York to have our first flagship here. I honestly think it's just the start of something absolutely huge for the US and I'm really excited to see what the next 5

years look like. 10 9 10 I see this as now a real opportunity for us to go again. It's that new chapter.

It's almost a closing of the old chapter and an opening of the new. The flagship's here, Gym Shark's here, and I'm really excited to continue to build our brand here.