CRUNCH

16 NEWS TUESDAY 4 APRIL 2017
INTERVIEW
FOUR years ago niche cycling
sportswear firm Rapha beat
German behemoth Adidas to
supply the kit to the world’s
best known cycling club,
Team Sky. At the time, Simon Mottram,
its chief executive and cofounder,
felt this was the just the
platform the retailer needed to take
things up a gear.
“We sold a lot of stuff, which made
Team Sky some royalties and it was
good for us,” Mottram tells City A.M.
However, last year Rapha parted
company with the four times Tour de
France champions.
Mottram says: “The connection with
cyclists and engagement and getting
fans more connected with the sport
never worked quite as well as we
wanted.
“That was, not a black mark, but disappointing.”
These days Mottram sees his company
doing well in what is often seen
as a broken sport.
Rapha’s story dates back to 2004.
Mottram, who originally trained at
PwC before a 15-year career in marketing,
went at full pelt to get Rapha off
the ground and attract investment.
And with capital secured, the brand
was launched.
In its first year Rapha generated
£300,000 of sales and quickly established
a loyal and growing customer
base.
The firm now turns over £63m.
PEDDLING MULTIPLE BRANDS
After initially peddling its wares
online, Rapha has expanded into a
multi-channel organisation.
Aside from clothing, the firm
creates other lifestyle brands, travel
holidays and boasts a 10,000 membership
of its £135-a-year subscription
model.
And the cycling company has gone
beyond e-commerce.
Mottram says: “I hesitate to say it but
we’ve gone from clicks to bricks,
which is a horrible expression.”
With 15 stores open already, rising
to 20 by the end of 2017, the firm is
growing in a different way to traditional
retailers.
He says: “It’s much easier to
start from the internet side
because you don’t have
hundreds of legacy leases
that you have to get rid of
or make them work.”
This week, Mottram
will preach his cycling
company’s philosophy to
over 1,400 of the great
and the good from the
global retail industry at
New success cycle? Why
Rapha split from Team Sky
Pro-cycling may be ‘broken’. But cycling firm Rapha’s boss
Simon Mottram tells Oliver Gill why it’s not all that bad
Simon
Mottram,
Rapha’s CEO
and co-founder
the World Retail Congress in Dubai.
BEING ‘CHEAP’ VERSUS ‘GOOD’
Rapha’s slightly queasy mantra is
about “putting the customer at the
centre of everything we do”.
Mottram explains how this works
for him: “For us it’s about building relationships
over time.
“Encouraging that person to come
back. Helping them to fall in love with
the product through contact, before
they place the transaction,” he adds.
“A jersey isn’t just a piece of cloth, a
piece of fabric sewn together with
some zips; it represents a massive day
on the bike.”
Rapha’s high-end products come at
a price though.
Its lower end shorts and jerseys
start at £75, with its
more professional
shorts setting you
back £265.
Mottram says:
“Somebody said to me
the other day: ‘You’ve either
got to be very cheap
or very good’. And we’re
not going to be very
cheap.”
Cycling and the sport’s
history are front and
centre as we take a tour
round Rapha’s warehouse
headquarters.
For example, the entire
downstairs is home to a
mammoth bike park with
a full-time mechanic on
CITYAM.COM
hand. Staff training programmes have
racing references; the firm’s emerging
leader initiative is called the
White Jersey programme, after the
Tour de France jersey for the fastest
young rider.
“It’s like drip, drip indoctrination.
Everybody has a race number as their
employee number,” says Mottram.
“I’m number one. And when somebody
leaves their number goes with
them.
“Staff have to come to be prepared to
get involved. To get seduced. To fall in
love with it. Otherwise, why be here?
If you’re never going to be a cyclist I
honestly don’t want you to work for
me.”
WHY CYCLING GETS BAD PRESS
From allegations of doping to
concerns over athlete welfare, cycling
has been plagued by a stream of negative
headlines ever since Rapha
launched.
“It’s been crisis after crisis after crisis.
And yet we’ve seen our sales grow
dramatically. And through recessions
as well. We’re doing incredibly well
with a broken sport. Sort out the sport
and we can do even better.”
If you’re never
going to be a cyclist
I don’t want you to
work for me
Among experienced cycling aficionados
some scoff at those new to
the sport who deck themselves out in
full pro team outfits; the kind of kit
Rapha was making until last year for
Team Sky.
Mottram is not a scoffer though and
counters: “The proportion of team kit
wearers is less and less.”
Perhaps this explains why Rapha
decided to end its relationship with
Team Sky: the pro-riders on the stylish
flatscreens around Rapha’s office are
no longer who its customers want to
admire.
“It’s another sign that pro
racing is a little bit broken,”
he says. “We
don’t even
want to
wear the
team kit.
That’s not
good is it?”
Chris Froome of
Team Sky