Hawkers, sunglasses as an excuse
With more than two million sunglasses sold, the brand from Alicante uses this product to do what it does best: selling on social networks
"There is a lot of footwear industry around Elx. We have grown up seeing people going crazy, every year it is madness, with collections, sizes…," recalls Moreno. They tried with mugs and sex toys, but the sunglasses "worked from the first day," says the young entrepreneur who is still not 30. With a smile of nostalgia he returns to the early days when "the lad from MRW came and took away a box. Soon he needed a trolley and in the end he needed help to load all the orders we were sending out."
The origin: obsession with selling
Before the first sales, the four founders spent more than a year trying to get another project off the ground called Saldum. An idea similar to Wallapop, what it lacked was "traffic and a fundamental thing: transactions." Moreno and his partners now are clear about one thing: "If the business does not make money, it is not a business, it's leisure." In the search for money to fund this project, they began to accept freelance commissions from other companies in the area, designing e-commerce for them.
"Perhaps we weren't the best at everything, but we supplied a well-turned out product, we did not charge much and we delivered very quickly. In a short time it was working and there were sales. Seeing that we decided to do the same for ourselves," says David Moreno. "From the first day until now there hasn't been a sale without sunglasses," he points out to justify their opting for this product.
And their choice worked well straight away. "We are experts in hype," says David Moreno to explain the world Trending Topics they appear in all the time. A good example is how with #HawkersLaLiaEnSolMañana they managed to be the first to buy an iPhone 7 to later give it away. The sunglasses are an excuse "because our ability is selling." The Hawkers' cofounder is sure that "the people who buy from us are not buying sunglasses. They are buying the feeling of 'being in', of buying a product in fashion on the internet that everyone is wearing." This hype, "the feeling that you need that thing," is what they are capable of creating to replicate applying a recipe that, at least for them, is simple: "Psychology and mathematics."
| David Moreno interviewed by VIA Empresa | Photo: Haidy Blanch |
From Forocoches to China
The first sunglasses that they sold were from the US brand Knockaround. David's brother, Alejandro, a fervent follower of the popular Forocoches, had seen the success these sunglasses had in different group purchases. So they chose a product for which they made an initial order of 30 pairs of sunglasses, "which seemed crazy to us." Moreno recalls how their mothers suffered in case they would not be able to recover the investment, "but they sold very well and so we reinvested."
For about a year that was how things worked. The first orders from Knockaround ended in an agreement for them to become distributors in Spain, but they reached a moment when "we could not keep up with all of the sunglasses we were selling." After failing to come to agreement with the US firm to raise production, they moved to plan B: creating their own brand.
This is how David Moreno and one of his partners ended up going round China looking for the best option for making their sunglasses. "In keeping with the idea of simplicity we were looking for models that we knew had already been successful: Froxi from Oakley, RayBan, etc.," says Moreno about the type of sunglasses they sell. "Since then we have done some of our own designs, but at the start we went with designs that already existed, for which the patent has already run out... or at least we are dodging the Oakley lawyers well," he says ironically. In fact, the only brand that has really pursued them in the courts is Hermès. "They say that the H of Hawkers looks like theirs… ."
Tearing up the rules of the market
One of the secrets of Hawker's success is the price. Sunglasses for around 30 euros were not common until they appeared, and combined with their commitment to the net has turned them into the kings of compulsive buying. But where does this great difference in price compared to traditional brands come from? "It comes from years of being comfortable, of having experienced many years of monopoly that has let them set prices. They put prices of €200 and sold them," says Moreno.
The Hawkers cofounder adds that these major brands "have what we think is a very respectable margin, but it isn't our idea. We thought the cost could be reduced a lot without necessarily having to resort to that" For that reason, he adds, they want to be the "the option on the market for getting a quality product for an honest price."
Teaching Facebook lessons
The key to the success of Hawkers, apart from a simple and impulsive product at a low cost, is their ability to sell on social networks. "We don't really know what we are doing. We had never before used these tools, which were very new. Yet we have always been avid readers of all the marketing publications and social media. "There they said Facebook was not a good place to sell" Moreno recalls. Obsessed with challenging the status quo, they dived in head first. And after so much success they have ended up giving the Facebook engineers in California lessons.
| At Hawkers they say they are "hype experts" | Ceded |
Moreno remembers how his brother insistently asked the Facebook engineers whether they wanted their money. And often they have reached the advertising limit on the platform. "It makes sense that we are almost ahead of the engineers who created the tool. They do not use it as extensively as we do," says Moreno, who plays down the fact of being invited to the Zuckerberg stronghold. "We launch thousands of ads every day and there came a point where we could give them tips on what could be done," he says.
They began with "a 50-dollar coupon that we bought on some Chinese site on the deep web..., which was actually the equivalent of a lot more." That grew into expenditure of between 50,000 or 100,000 euros on one special day.
"To sell on Facebook we have used basic psychology. We tried to come up with the profile of the person with the spending power to purchase this product or the ones we wanted to buy from us," says David Moreno. "We targeted the advertising at young women who had bought an iPhone, who had studied in certain universities, who liked a certain type of music or went to festivals, etc."
From Jorge Lorenzo to the Lakers
With the irreverent spirit that characterises them at Hawkers they have managed to get a number of celebrities to wear their sunglasses. The list is unending, but one of the first was motorcycle rider Jorge Lorenzo, who even became a partner with half of the firm. "We have the capacity to talk to anyone from a list of contacts that lets you get to anyone. They call us the know-who, as we know who to call when it's the right moment," say Moreno. Lorenzo ended up leaving to set up his own sunglasses brand… that has not been so successful.
Meanwhile, Hawkers has continued to form alliances with brands like Mercedes Benz, Ford and Samsung. Yet if there is one that stands out it is their agreement with Los Angeles Lakers, from the NBA. "It happened because we were keen to see a live match," David Moreno admits lightheartedly. "To get into the match for free we contacted different directors and told them we were interested in buying the team." That was how they managed to spend the day with the basketball team's jet set… but when they were shown the list of potential sponsorship they went straight for the cheapest: for 20,000 dollars they had access to the team's social networks, their natural habitat. A real win.