The Interview: Gymshark's Wholesale & Retail General Manager on driving retail expansion

Hannah Mercer has been in her role as General Manager of Wholesale & Retail at Gymshark for 11 months, having joined from a senior retail role at Adidas. It’s been quite a whirlwind as the "We Do Gym" brand, which was founded by weightlifting enthusiast and current company CEO Ben Francis making T-shirts out of a garage in 2012, continues its retail expansion.

TheIndustry.fashion sat down with Mercer at Gymshark’s new 9,000 sq ft Westfield White City store which opened on Saturday, complete with store exclusives across T-shirts and hoodies, to get her vision for the brand on both the retail and wholesale front.

Why did you see Westfield White City as an attractive location for Gymshark’s latest store?

We have our flagship on Regent Street in central London and our store at Westfield Stratford in east London, so to have a west London proposition at Westfield White City completes a London trinity for us. Add to that it has the highest revenue and is the largest growth shopping centre in the whole of Europe, with some 28 million visitors a year. I’m also very familiar with it as I used to look after the Adidas store here, and before that the Nike store. With Gymshark, we’re in a great location on the ground floor, and we have a wider shop front than at Stratford. It gets more visitors than Stratford and there’s a higher spend per customer transaction of an average of £108 here.

What’s different about this particular store?

It has around a 20% wider assortment than Stratford as the space is bigger, and we really love the in-store destination areas for leggings for women and shorts for men. They have both worked well in Stratford, so it’s a continuation of that, but on a larger scale. We’ve changed the store design at Westfield White City somewhat – it’s more open. For the women’s space, we are leading with exclusives, such as our range with Whitney Simmons. We also have a dedicated lifting area at the front of the store, utilising our key athlete collaborations within the space. We’re also increasing and elevating our services, including having a personal shopping area as well as offering bra fitting. Personal shopping is quite big within Westfield White City, so we thought having a dedicated suite in here would do well. We’ve done it at our store in Dubai, and the sales are fantastic within that space.

How long has the Dubai store been open now and how is it performing?

It opened in mid-January and it’s massively out performing our expectations. We initially did a pop-up in the Mall of the Emirates for about an eight-week period, and then we opened our permanent store at the Dubai Mall. It’s the most visited space in the world, and that includes tourist attractions. It’s incredible and we have a fantastic location there. We’re now looking at further expansion in the region through our franchise partner, Al Tayer. 

We launched our rotating weights plates with mannequins at the front of the Dubai store, and we’ve now got them here at Westfield White City. You really get a sense of the full look as you come in the store and it makes it more alive.

Where else are you targeting internationally for retail?

We’ve just signed for our first US flagship store at 11 Bond Street in New York, and we are in the process of designing that space. When we go to a city, a bit like London, we’re looking at a major flagship – like we have in Regent Street – then two full-price concept stores like this in Westfield, in shopping malls, deliberately where there’s high traffic to complement the geographic of the city. We’re looking to do something similar in New York, but we are still looking at places.

How long have you been at Gymshark now?

Almost 11 months, though it feels like we’ve already done a lot in that time as when I joined we just had the Regent Street store. As well as the new Dubai store, Westfield Stratford and now Westfield White City, we’re opening at The Kalverstraat in Amsterdam in late spring, and then at The Trafford Centre in Manchester this summer.

What were your roles prior to joining Gymshark?

I was Vice President for Global Key Cities at Adidas, so I looked after the 11 key cities across the world, with an understanding of all those key markets and their consumers, as well as the different distribution touch points – looking to drive market share and growth within those key cities. Before that I was Head of Global Retail at Adidas, which covered 15,000 stores across the world. I was at Adidas for about eight years, and before that I was at Nike for just over seven years, the last four of which as Senior Director of Retail, looking after retail in Europe.

Prior to Nike I spent a year as Senior Director of Bicester Village, a role I took on after being Head of Retail at Harrods, following a Senior Director role at House of Fraser. I actually grew up in retail, starting as a shop assistant at Harrods. Retail is exciting as you make it, so I got a black book and started connecting with different consumers – calling them back when different collections came in. I then got on to the executive training scheme and worked my way up through different levels.

From all your experiences, what are key factors you’ve now brought to Gymshark?

I think understanding the complexities of the marketplace and how you win in key cities – that’s a key component of doing different product propositions. If you think of the marketplace, and you think of our competitors, or other brands that I’ve worked for within the shopping centre, think of how many touch points they in here (in Westfield) for instance. Think of the same shoe being in 10 locations, or the same top in 15 locations within this demographic – with the same consumer. I want to make sure that we do things right at Gymshark. I’ve got a blank piece of paper, writing the future of where we’re going to show up and which distribution model we’re going to show up in.

We need to make sure that we don’t cannibalise or saturate the market. We want to be a 100 year-old brand, so to do that we have to be really sharply focused on what we’re going to do, and what we’re not going to do. How we are going to be in what given marketplace has to be really intentional. My learnings from across the last 30 years in retail – including franchise models - and wholesale, is that we have to be deliberate but also very curated about the assortment in the spaces and places we are going to be in. To have a blank sheet is a really exciting proposition. I’ve never had that from day dot with any other brand I’ve ever worked for. I’ve inherited loads of stores for other brands, and I’ve had to look at the marketplace again and look at the profitability of stores. I’ve had to do all of that retrospectively, where as here (with Gymshark) we can write it – and do it right.

What are the wholesale plans for Gymshark?

We have the Selfridges account, which is doing very well for us. We have a branded shop proposition with a shop fit, but it’s served by Selfridges as a wholesale model in the London store and at The Trafford Centre location. At the moment, we’re looking at wholesale partners that will authenticate our brand like Selfridges, which is a great beacon on the high street and it’s right that we are in there. There will be other synergies with other partners that we are looking at through wholesale which will also authenticate us. It’s about asking, who’s going to be next to us, how our shop fit will look, where should we be in that marketplace where we won’t have own retail. It’s all work in progress.