In February, Tunbridge Wells saw the opening of The Protein Pick & Mix, a bricks and mortar version of the original online-only store created by director and chief mixer Ant Rodgers. Here, he talks to NPN about the concept behind the store and the move to the high street
How did the Tunbridge Wells store come about?
We’d outgrown the shared offices we fulfilled from and worked out of early in 2015 and, with new team members joining to cope with the growing volume of orders, we knew we had to move into our own space – and soon. Given the heavy e-commerce focus of the business up to that point a strong case existed for following the Amazon path and getting a warehouse or industrial unit. But where’s the fun in that?
I’d noticed the growing trend for quirky, characterful and niche cafes, delis, farm shops and health food shops – and had made many pilgrimages up to the more bohemian parts of London or down to Brighton to explore them – and my gut told me, bearing in mind the personal, accessible focus of Pick & Mix and our fun, mascot-led branding, that this, and not a big, dusty, remote warehouse, was the way to go.
Idly glancing through local commercial premises one day last September a curious, recently renovated former charity shop/café popped up. Benefitting from a mixed A1/A3 license, a bright, colourful shop-front, a surprisingly spacious upstairs that would do the trick for our website fulfilment (including a lift!) and a handy, central situation on Camden Road in Tunbridge Wells – renowned for its unusual shops, quirky character and strong community – and right around the corner from a large, chain-gym. More than we were looking to spend but it just seemed too perfect. We had to move on it! The rest is history.
We moved into the new premises the first week of January 2016 and, after getting fulfilment around the online orders back up to speed, we opened doors on the shop itself – the first tangible, real-world Protein Pick & Mix – the first week of February.
Can you tell me a bit about the concept behind The Protein Pick & Mix?
The original idea for the store – online only to begin with – was, simply, ‘protein sweetshop’. As childish as that. Suffering with an insatiable sweet-tooth, being a dedicated and (a little too) regular gym-goer through my late teens and twenties presented something of a challenge; the two appetites are uneasy bedfellows as, obviously, a high sugar, candy-filled diet doesn’t do anyone any favours, least of all the athletic and/or narcissistic! But what about a shop filled with treats and snacks you can justify? High protein (key for a gym goer!) but also low sugar, low salt, thoughtfully formulated, gluten free…all presented with love, care and – unlike with many other retailers (at the time, at least) who offered ‘functional’ or convenient ‘on-the-go’ style foods – with a real focus on the taste, the experience of eating and the, yes, the fun inherent in certain products via a well-marketed, characterful brand.
Beyond this, the concept extended to the format in which the products were sold. In the fitness industry (our original market), snacks – like supplements – were typically sold in bulk, but how often do we buy our snacks – treats or otherwise – like that? Do we walk out of a convenience store with a whole box of Mars Bars? A case of cheese & onion crisps? Not often! Same with protein bars and cookies. I, as a consumer, wanted to try all of these fun, novel (often expensive and imported) goodies, but I didn’t want to have to commit to 12, 18 or 24 bars, brownies or cookies at a time and, effectively, end up planning my impulse snacking weeks in advance.
So, beyond the ‘pick & mix’ sweetie connotation, enter the novelty and convenience of single-serve and sampling selling ‘pick & mix’ across all flavours and brands. The bulk/value obsessed supplement marketplace aside, this was fairly unusual across the board online at the time (late 2013) due to the fussiness and expense of picking and packing orders with as few as one item in them. Worth the trouble? Well, I have always been notoriously indecisive and, given where we find the company now three years on, it would seem others are too! Choice and variety is key, along with passion and care where care is due in the presentation of worthy, forward-thinking products.
How would you describe the new shop?
We’ve tried our best to stay as true to the digital concept of Pick & Mix and, hopefully, the first high street shop is similarly colourful, lively and welcoming. As with the website, the Pick & Mix mascot and the pink candy-stripe is ever-present in the shop, and shoppers will always be greeted by this, the fruity smell of sweets and the sound of classic rock tunes and blending protein shakes.
‘Ordered chaos’ may be the best way to describe the real-world Protein Pick & Mix experience! Broadly speaking we’ve clustered products around the shop by category: vegan and dairy-free (including snacks, proteins and greens-powders), baking ingredients and essentials (chia seeds, oats, coconut flour, agave and other syrups), cereals, granolas, flavoured coffees and light bites (rice cakes, crisps and popcorn), whey-based protein powders, protein bars and snacks, and then the more full-on training/sports support supplements. In overview, sports nutrition one side and wholefoods and lifestyle products on the other.
We sell a lot of nut butters and sweet spreads – a particular team-favourite so we promote and feature them often – and have dedicated a central island in the shop to them.
Whilst we’ve yet to fully exploit the category, ice cream also features – dairy-free, no added sugar or otherwise – and we’ve position our display freezer close to the entrance along with our chilled ready-to-drink shakes, energy and vitamin drinks.
Front and centre in the shop when you walk in we have our feature Pick & Mix counter where we do sampling of new, favourite and seasonal products, and this works very well to introduce new arrivals and showcase bestsellers or special offers.
How does the website compare with the store regarding sales?
As it stands, the website outsells the shop 4:1. This is hardly unexpected though. The vast majority of our promotional activity is focused on the website (social media and the little paid advertising we do) and the website has been live for nearly three years, enjoying strong search-engine rankings. The one interesting thing to note is that whilst sales over the summer online have been a little volatile, sales in the shop have remained consistent and, indeed, grown slightly. This is very encouraging to see, and I think it can probably be put down to increased local word-of-mouth awareness now we’ve been here six months, on top of our good level of customer retention – you don’t forget a visit to the shop that quickly! We’re unique in town.
What type of customers are you attracting?
Traditionally, supplement stores are aimed at males, aged 18-25. Whilst we have a young team and make heavy use of social media (particularly Instagram, which has an overwhelmingly young user-base) – giving us that youth/18-25 focus – if anything, we target the female market; our fun, friendly, informal brand tone aims to be accessible, where many of our competitors are intimidating and their marketing saturated with vascular, oversized men, a little scary.
Our efforts I’m pleased to say play out in our Web analytics, as our online customers appear to be about 75% female, reversing what’s commonly seen elsewhere in the sports nutrition marketplace.
In the shop, whilst we haven’t made any particularly scientific efforts to track visitors, it is far more 50/50 in terms of gender. Yes, still way ahead of the number of female customers your normal supplement shop might see, but a good number of men too, perhaps due to the fact that there’s little competition – save for Holland & Barrett – in Tunbridge Wells.
But it isn’t a shop focused on any one market or type of consumer. We want the broadest possible appeal. The young and old, fit and unfit, the connoisseurs and the simply curious. If we’ve done our jobs right, there’s something for everyone in the shop, and we certainly don’t try and push any particular lifestyle or diet on folks who stop by.
What is the store’s product mix?
We have always focused on smaller, niche (and often imported) brands. We prefer well marketed, polished products (they simply look nicer on shelves) but we’re more than happy to be flexible here for the right product, and there’s nothing we like more than discovering smaller, cottage manufacturers making unique, out-of-the-ordinary products. If they taste good, are well formulated and make us smile, they’re in! We’re also happy to ignore margin on these artisan products. It gets to the point that if we love a product enough and there are good people behind the brand, we’re proud just to be working with them, and we like to support their efforts however we can. Social media is, again, fantastic here – we discover so many amazing products via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Online, we have always offered a slightly bewildering ‘mix’ of products (again, the ‘mix’ in the name comes into play here!), but the general focus has been supplements – high-protein foods and drinks. But we are very reactive to customer requests and enquiries and, since we’ve been up and running here in Tunbridge Wells, we’ve had far more requests locally for vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free, organic, all natural – the list goes on! It would seem the people of Tunbridge Wells are craving free-from goodies, and we’re more than happy to oblige, introducing many SKUs in-store that we don’t even have on the website.
As time goes on we will continue to be responsive to customer requests – both online and off – and bring them the fun, irreverent Protein Pick & Mix flair.
