Sekonda - The Moodie Report

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BRAND SHOWCASE • Sekonda October/November 2006 Sekonda fact file Headquarters: Time Products (UK) Ltd, Leicester, UK Founded: 1931 by Alexander Margulies, father of current Chairman Marcus Margulies Owner: Marcus Margulies, who also owns the upscale Marcus watch boutique in London’s New Bond Street Product specialism: Watches – traditional, contemporary and fashion markets Brands: Sekonda watches retailing at £20-80; Seksy fashion watches for women retailing at £40–75; ONE fashion watches for men £40–75; Xpose outdoor watches retailing at £20 (RRP); children’s watches £10–15. Brand tagline: Beware of Expensive Imitations Why buy? “Product, price, profit, quality and service” Sekonda says. All watches (over 350 styles) come with full after-sales service and a two-year guarantee. Range changes twice a year; customised packaging; brand recognition. The Sekonda brand sells more than 1.5 million units a year in the UK and abroad; it has 6.5% of the British watch market by volume for the year ending March 2006 (source: GfK data) Key travel retail accounts: World Duty Free (all four London Heathrow terminals), Alpha in the UK and at Rome airports; Aelia in the UK and airports in France; 34 cruise ships and passenger ferries such as P&O Ferries, SeaFrance and Brittany Ferries, plus Eurotunnel; The Nuance Group; airlines including Aer Lingus, bmi, British Airways, easyJet, Emirates, Monarch, Ryanair, Thomsonfly and Virgin; Dubai Duty Free (currently on trial); Harding Bros cruise ships (currently on trial) Best-performing travel retail point of sale: London Heathrow T3 (World Duty Free) Suitable for: High traffic areas and specialist watch areas Core customer group: Diverse range targeted at all ages, but core market is aged 35+ Sales mix by brand: 80% Sekonda brand; 20% fashion watches (of which Seksy accounts for around 15% and ONE for 3–4%) Website: sekonda.co.uk (new site to be launched in October 2006) into action and get seriously sexy and stylish for a new era of watch customer in the Noughties: women who want fast, disposable fashion. And that’s how Sekonda’s Seksy brand was born, some three years ago. The Seksy name, conjured up by a brand consultancy working with Sekonda, succinctly sums up the image Sekonda is aiming to portray for this women’s fashion watch brand. Now, as well as giving consumers dependable, good-quality merchandise under the top-selling Sekonda brand for relatively little money, Seksy represents a fast-moving, desirable product that changes with the fashion times and is also eminently affordable. And believe me, as a long-time fashion watcher, these times are changing super-fast. You only have to look at what retailers like TopShop and Mango are doing. They’re catering to the appetite of eager female shoppers who want the latest must-have items they’ve spotted in the leading weekly fashion/celebrity magazines such as Heat, OK and Closer. And it’s not just women who have an appetite for hunting down trends and fads – it’s men, teenagers and children too. Sekonda also serves these market segments. Men are treated to the ONE range of big, chunky watches with their no-nonsense quartz digital appeal, which was introduced in December 2005. Consumers aged from teens upwards are catered to with the rugged, outdoorsy Xpose collection; plus there’s a small but perfectly formed collection of children’s watches. However, the firm’s products are aimed at all ages, right across the watch-wearing spectrum. Brand Director Trevor James says: “We go from A to Z – we hit all markets. We are an impulse buy.” (As a testament to this trend, this writer favours oversized men’s watches, but Left to right: Sekonda’s Owner and Chairman Marcus Margulies, Sales Manager Gary Taylor and Brand Director Trevor James 252 The Moodie Report
October/November 2006 BRAND SHOWCASE • Sekonda Liz Woodland’s timely move In summer 2006 Sekonda took the major step of hiring the services of travel retail dynamo Liz Woodland, who is advising the UK watchmaker on areas such as brand development, training and presentation. Woodland is one of the industry’s leading retailers, and her CV makes fascinating reading. After years of experience in travel retail (page 254) she created her independent UK retail advisory business Consulting For Retail in 2001. Soon after Woodland took on an assignment with Swiss travel retailer Weitnauer in late 2002. Her sterling work ultimately led to an invitation to join Weitnauer’s Executive Committee as Chief Procurement Officer, making her a key figure as the company was renamed Dufry and was acquired by a group led by Advent International. In December 2005 she established a UK base near London, from where she divides her time with a home in France. “I’m passionate about retail and passionate about travel retail,” she says. One of her key areas of interest is store development. Elements include matching customer profiles with the brands that those customers are interested in. “Today there is a new customer shopping with us – a much more frequent traveller, much more savvy, and wanting change, including change in products,” she comments. “I’d like to work to bring constant newness into travel retail stores.” Another area of interest is brand development: “Working with brands to develop visualisation in stores and to assist their brands to grow in travel retail outside the UK.” “They [Sekonda] have one of the keys to today’s travel retail consumer – they have a huge range of products within the £20–50 arena,” says Woodland. “They display and present ranges well, and they offer great quality and value product. That’s why they are the number-one UK brand in terms of high street unit sales. “While they haven’t always had the right arena elsewhere within Europe, wherever they have been introduced they have done well. And I’m very excited about assisting them in their development.” Advertising visuals for the Seksy fashion watch brand are designed to be exactly that – sexy and stylish. Each season’s star watches get a name, just like all the iconic fashion handbags these days. The watch featured here is the Eclipse model has her eye on a cute-looking Sekonda butterfly fashion watch. Something to wear just for fun.) Sekonda in travel retail At Sekonda, knowledge is everything. The whole company, headquartered in the city of Leicester in the Midlands, exudes vast experience and expertise – whether it be in watchmaking (which now takes place in China, although a handful of veteran watchmakers are still employed in-house), product testing or customer service. Many personnel have been with the company for years. One department visited by The Moodie Report collectively had over 100 years of service – and that section consisted of only four staff. This highly knowledgeable team of passionate people is also evident in the fast-expanding travel retail department, headed by James. He has worked with travel retailers for over 20 years and, in true watch company fashion, knows exactly how they tick. Several years ago he visited a certain leading travel retailer to discover they were selling his Sekonda watches under a glass counter along with the fashion and upper-end brands. He realised this type of merchandising was not going to favour an inexpensive brand such as Sekonda, so he devised the highly successful tailored self-select stand concept that is now used to display the brand in many travel retail points of sale. That same retailer went from selling 3,000 watches a year to 40,000 within two to three years, according to James, who is a very happy man indeed. Also in the sales hot seats are Sales Manager Gary Taylor and Sales Promotion Manager Martin Lovatt. Among the other travel retail team members are Commercial Manager Helen Campbell, who moved from a grocery background to Sekonda – and must be very glad she did, judging by the rapid-fire pace of today’s watch market; and Jenny Wise provides essential back-up for the travel retail team. The Moodie Report 253
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