Bunker Mentality, the punky British golf apparel brand, is opening its own office in the United States to widen its international distribution. It will be based in Florida and headed up by Ian Redman, who has been with the company for several months.
Bunker Mentality already has distribution partners in the German-speaking countries, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, but an agreement in the Czech Republic was terminated this year. European distributors should contribute to an international sales expansion of about 12 percent for the brand this year, adding to projected growth of about 10 percent in the British market.
Owned by Robert Hart, a former fashion industry executive, the brand is sold in about 30 British retail stores, led by American Golf and a few on-course stores. However, much of its U.K. expansion this year has come from electronic sales, which make up about 40 percent of the brand’s U.K. turnover.
This is in line with the trend observed in the British fashion market, where online sales of garments have been taking off in the last two years. Among the most spectacular stories is that of Asos, a website selling designer fashion, which more than doubled its turnover to about £165 million (€178.5m-$266.6m) for the financial year ended in March. Other such examples show that consumers are getting used to buying fashion clothing online. Bunker Mentality is explicitly positioned as a mix between golf and fashion apparel, with the tagline “from first tee to last orders.”
G-Partners, the company behind the brand, is investing in the internet by permanently displaying its website address on its catalogs and any other printed matter. Furthermore, it makes abundant use of the internet to spread the word about the brand, using websites from YouTube to Twitter and Facebook, which is proving much more targeted, active and cost-effective than other means.
