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As Britain experiences its coldest week of the year, one man can be forgiven for having a smile on his face.
Mark Neale, who opened the first Mountain Warehouse in Swindon 25 years ago, is enjoying a great week before Christmas as fleeces, thermals, beanies, gloves, socks and ski jackets fly off the shelves.
Last weekend was the High Street retailer’s busiest weekend ever.
Record demand: During the Black Friday week, Mountain Warehouse sold 100,000 fleeces, 80,000 thermals, 50,000 ski jackets, 100,000 quilted jackets and 250,000 hats, gloves and socks
And this follows a record-breaking Black Friday late last month, when sales were a tenth higher than last year.
There was a particular buzz at the end of the World Cup clash between England and the US – which fell on Black Friday and ended 0-0 – as the website took orders every second.
During the Black Friday week, Mountain Warehouse sold 100,000 fleeces, 80,000 thermals, 50,000 ski jackets, 100,000 quilted jackets, and 250,000 hats and pairs of gloves and socks.
The boost continued a post-pandemic recovery that saw the outdoor gear retailer reach new heights after teetering on the brink of collapse.
Results for the year to the end of February showed sales were up more than a quarter from a year earlier to £302.6m, the highest ever despite the continued disruption from Covid.
That figure was also 4.6 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels. The company swung to a loss of £164,000 for the year, from a profit of £7.9 million a year earlier.
Neale’s sense of relief was palpable over a cup of coffee at Mountain Warehouse’s headquarters in Victoria, London.
The 54-year-old’s empire nearly collapsed when Covid hit. When the number of cases of the virus skyrocketed in March 2020, sales plummeted and Mountain Warehouse decided to close shop.
Neale left the building in tears, saying it felt like “staring into an abyss.” He said, “I had spent 23 years building this and I had no idea if we were going to come back.”
But it was saved by “extremely helpful” government interventions, including furlough payments and corporate rate cuts.
From then on, online sales bounced back from the initial shock, as households in lockdown turned to outdoor activities such as walking and swimming in open water.
And as pandemic restrictions eased, it roared back to life, riding the wave of a staycation boom.
Camping gear flew off the shelves and shops flourished.
When local MP Northallerton’s Mountain Warehouse in his constituency of Richmond in North Yorkshire for a pair of walking boots during the 2019 campaign trail, it hardly caused a stir.
At the time, Rishi Sunak was a relatively obscure figure, having only recently been elevated to Chief Secretary of the Treasury.
Founder: Mark Neale opened the first Mountain Warehouse in Swindon 25 years ago
Even after Sunak rose to the top of politics, he is far from the most famous man to have bought shoes from Neale.
He considers Mick Jagger to be his most famous client.
In a life before Mountain Warehouse, Neale founded skate shop Route One. The Rolling Stones frontman lived in Richmond in Surrey with Jerry Hall and “just walked into the shop one day and bought some,” Neale said.
“Of course you get a selfie these days, don’t you?” he said.
Neale sold the five-owned retail chain to a friend and moved on to his next venture.
“It was really hopeless,” he said of an educational toy company that had been bankrupted by Tesco and Woolworths, among others. Then he tried greeting cards, which was “actually okay, but went nowhere.”
After back-to-back flops, Neale “stumbled” into outdoor gear, and Mountain Warehouse was born. The no-frills affordable kit flew off the shelves and paved the way for a slew of store openings.
The company stood out in an outerwear market dominated by companies like North Face and Columbia, whose marketing often featured hikers tackling the mountains with ice picks.
However, Mountain Warehouse’s focus was not entirely on the top of the mountain. “Our customers are interested in value for money and a functional product that will keep them dry when they walk the dog,” said Neale.
It was a fitting approach for Neale, and also showed an entrepreneurial “try and try again” attitude.
The strategy has paid off, with Mountain Warehouse seeing more than 20 years of back-to-back growth in sales and profits before the pandemic hit.
Neale said, “Ten or fifteen years ago I met someone and they said, ‘What are you doing?’
“I’d say I have a company called Mountain Warehouse – it’s kind of like Millets.
‘Five years ago I had the same conversation and they immediately said: ‘Oh, I know what Mountain Warehouse is’.
“Then the weather changed — about three years ago people went from saying they knew what Mountain Warehouse was to saying, “I love Mountain Warehouse.”
“It was a real journey.”
Neale was born in the former steel-producing town of Ebbw Vale in South Wales and grew up in nearby Abergavenny. He attended the private Monmouth School for Boys before taking a place at Oxford University.
He studied shadow home economics with Boris Johnson and secretary Yvette Cooper while scraping through a degree in physics.
He was the first person in his family to attend university, but he was not the first successful retailer – one of his great-grandfathers owned a shop at Tredegar in Blaenau Gwent.
His wife Michelle Feeney was CEO of St Tropez sun care brand, but has since moved into luxury perfumery, opening Floral Street in 2017.
Neale’s daughter, who recently started studying geography at the University of Edinburgh, enjoys a discount from Mountain Warehouse friends and family, helping her stock up on supplies she needs for her course.
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