Rox is determined to fulfill its long-held ambition to move into Manchester.
In an interview with WatchPro to be published in the March edition, co-founders Kyron Keogh and Grant Mitchell say the business has the infrastructure, skills and brand strength to be a far larger national multiple, and they feel ready to expand.
“Our overhead infrastructure cost is set up for more shops. We need more scale. We set the business up to serve multiple stores, and we are now in a very good position to expand. Every time we open a store it is operationally profitable. We need to share the cost of our head office overhead across more shops,” Mr Mitchell says.
Rox has been trying to open in the North West of England for two years, but has not found the right opportunity.
“We need to be in Manchester. There are so many good things going on in Manchester at the moment. It is a real economic success story right now,” suggests Mr Keogh. “We need to finish off the North. I think Liverpool is somewhere we need to look at and then we can start looking further South,” he adds.
Securing any significant watch agencies in Manchester will be tough, despite Rox’s success in Scotland and Newcastle with Hublot, Zenith, Tudor, Bremont and Chopard.
That will not prevent the Glasgow-based business from opening in the Northwest, where it can copy the model of its Leeds boutique, which sells only jewellery.
“We could do a jewellery store in Manchester to get a foot in the door and then see what other opportunities come up,” Mr Keogh suggesets.
