Specialist retailer Pure Electric has made the strategic decision to double down on electric scooters in what it sees as huge growth opportunities in a more focussed market.
Pure originally launched as an e-scooter retailer under the name Pure Scooters before diversifying into e-bikes and opening a number of stores across the UK and Europe. It will now focus solely on manufacturing its own e-scooters and selling these either direct to consumers or via third-party retail stores.
“What we have found over the last year-and-a-half is that the e-scooter side of our business is really flourishing while e-bikes have been more difficult due to the busy, clustered market,” Pure Electric’s Founder Adam Norris told Zag Daily.
“We’re looking for differentiation and our e-scooter expertise is being cried out for around the world, so this way we can make a much bigger impact, a lot faster.”
A key element of this is in developing and manufacturing its own e-scooters. The company has so far rebranded scooters that have been manufactured by a third party but for the last two years it has been developing its own flagship product.
“We’ve recruited a team of amazing engineers who’ve been developing our own product that’s going very well,” said Norris. “What we’ve been working on for the last two years is completely revolutionary in the same way that Dyson was for the hair dryer and the vacuum cleaner. It’s a new scooter which is going to be safer, smaller and better than everything on the market.”
Norris believes having a laser focus on this one key area can only benefit the company as it looks to become the key player in the e-scooter market worldwide.
“We had people in the engineering team looking at bikes, and they can now go back to focusing 100% on scooters,” said Norris. “Effectively, our team can be absolutely world class in one product category.”
Pure is already utilising third-party retailers to sell its products in other markets such as France and Spain, and this has proved successful. So it makes sense commercially to develop that model.
“In the last two months, we have gone into 183 retail stores in France so that distribution really dwarfs what we can do by launching our own stores,” said Norris.
Pure also has a strong online business, through which it will continue to sell e-scooters and related products direct to consumers.
“We’re going to continue with online and we’re going to build a third party model whilst keeping a flagship store. It’s our intention in each country.”
However, Norris is working on a plan to ensure that Pure’s retail stores are taken over in a seamless way and employees can continue in their jobs. “We’ve been approached by three bicycle businesses today, who all run electric bike shops, about working with us to take some of our store and our staff. And we’ve also been contacted by a bicycle manufacturer to take on our stores. So we’re speaking to these organisations at the moment and will look into the best option for our stores and our staff.”
Looking ahead, Norris is excited to focus on bringing innovations to the e-scooter market now that his business can focus solely on the sector.
“There are a lot of things that we’re trying to do to bring innovation to the market. Now we will be able to spend all our effort doing that and not trying to split between scooters and bikes.
“One of my philosophies in life is don’t do two things badly, do one thing well. I’m not saying we’ve done badly, but just that the ability to focus everything on a product we’re getting requests for around the world seems to make sense.”
