Greater Manchester Business Week – December 05, 2018

DECEMBER 2018 Business 33

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first office on Lloyd Street, but it soon

outgrew the space and took over six

floors at Tib Street. That was before

they relocated to The Foundry 18

months ago and employ 20 staff there.

“The Foundry was perfect for us.

I love the fact that it’s on the water,

there’s car parking, I love the creative

hub we’re surrounded by, there’s lots

of other businesses here and that often

means we get to collaborate, there’s a

nice community.”

Last year Boda Skins launched a

jewellery line which sold out within

days, and it’s an area Alexander plans

to grow next year.

It’s also had recent success with the

Shearling Collection, which sold out

within an hour.

Alexander said: “We launched a

The sold out

Shearling

Collection

Boda Skins CEO Nathan Alexander

He said: “eBay was good for us at the
start but to build a brand I needed to
get off eBay and start selling on my
own website. So I spent a number
of evenings learning how to build a
website.
“That wasn’t easy. We didn’t really
have a marketing budget. It was just
me and Blue working from my spare
bedroom and I had about 10 jackets in
stock at a time.”
The business took off when Wilson
decided to gift a jacket to social media
influencer, Adam Gallagher
When a picture of him wearing
a Boda Skin piece appeared on
Instagram, the company sold three
items in three minutes.
“We usually sold jackets over three to
four hour periods, and we realised he
had listed one of ours on Instagram at
a time when Instagram wasn’t as big as
it’s today.
“At that point I said let’s find 100
more of him and that’s when we started
gifting to influencers.
“We started getting the jackets
on people who already had a good
following and were respected for the
way they dressed and how they looked.
“Today 90% of all marketing is done
on Instagram.”
From working out of his spare
bedroom, Boda Skins moved to its

real luxury Shearling Collection for

Christmas where we doubled the retail

price to £1,000 a piece.

“I was nervous about it especially

as the price point was higher but the

whole collection sold out within an

hour, it was insane. That was a few

weeks ago. So I flew back to turkey and

we did a reorder and already 80% of

that has sold out.”

A new Shearling Collection is going

to be launched next September but

in the meantime Alexander is excited

about debuting a range of denim

jackets.

He said: “We are definitely

diversifying the business.

“We are in the process of bringing

out a jacket underlay collection. This

includes t-shirts and hoodies.

“We have a jersey collection which

is basically anything to wear with your

jacket underneath.

“But denim jackets is going to be big

for us. It’s my second passion in life as

I think they’re really cool, and that’s

launching in February.”

He continues: “Our customers are big

fans of our designs. Our typical client

is a person that wants to add some

attitude to their wardrobe.

“They want a little bit of grit and a

little bit of edge and that’s what we are

good at providing.”