Stefanie Hemshall established Escapade Sports in 2002 with her husband Keith, and she continues to run the company with her brother Christian Ross.
The trio opened Escapade Sports’ Causeway Bay store in 2009, the Central store in 2011 (which recently moved to a new location on On Lan Street) the online store in 2014, and the Repulse Bay store in 2015.
The main driver is to help everybody from professional athletes to first-time participants reach their full potential by providing them with top quality sportswear and accessories. Here, as she celebrates Escapade Sport’s 20th anniversary, Stefanie provides some inspirational advice for budding entrepreneurs.
Q How did Escapade Sports’ journey begin?
We bought the sports shop at the Hong Kong Cricket Club (HKCC) in 2002 in order to give my father-in-law employment. His investments had gone south, and he was looking for income. As an honorary member of HKCC, he liked the idea of working the shop that was there at the time. I took over from him about two years later when he had sorted out his investments and wanted to retire, and I took it from there.
Q What are the main characteristics that every successful entrepreneur needs?
Firstly, believing that if you work hard, you can make a bad situation good again – and being prepared to work hard. Secondly, being passionate about what you do. Thirdly, admitting that you cannot be good at all aspects of the business and finding help with the aspects that you are not good at or don’t like doing.
Q Did you look at your competition when deciding to start-up?
When we opened our flagship store in Causeway Bay, we had no competition as we specialised in sports that were considered niche at the time, like rugby and triathlon.
Q What’s the most important thing to consider when setting up a business?
It is a lot less glamorous than most people think, and you must have stamina.
Q What’s the key to entrepreneurial success?
There are two: Being able to think out of the box, and being able to reflect your passion to the people around you.
Q What’s the best piece of entrepreneurial advice you have ever been given?
To improve my forecasting and planning. A lot of entrepreneurs don’t like this part as it’s not much fun.
Q How do you reach your target audience?
By a mix of word of mouth, print advertisements and social media, as well as collaboration with event organisers.
Q What qualities do you look for when hiring staff?
A good command of English and a willingness to learn. Ideally too, they are passionate about sport.
Q How do you operate in closed markets, i.e. COVID?
It’s very hard. You really have to think out of the box. When gyms and LCSD facilities closed, we had to make sure we had a lot more home exercise equipment on offer and get used to the fact that we would sit on rugby and hockey items much longer. When you have a shop on the beach (as we do at Repulse Bay) and beaches close, it is so very hard. You have to negotiate with landlords and limit your opening hours and think of other ways to cut costs.
Q Do many of your customers shop online?
Our online sales are growing but they are still only a very small percentage of our overall sales. What’s great is that we offer same day deliveries within Hong Kong.
Q What value-added services do you provide compared to the existing competition?
We believe that our customers are the most important part of our business and we try to make them feel that way. We try to help them, advise them and make their buying experience as enjoyable and smooth as possible. We also have a Super Active VIP membership programme in place so that loyal customers can enjoy discounts and special offers.
Q Do you advocate Corporate Social Responsibility?
Definitely! That’s one of the best parts of running a business. We love helping others. Even gestures that are small for us, like donating Shock Absorber sports bras for female refugees through RUN Hong Kong, can help people a lot. We always want to help. We’ve been collecting used shoes for over 10 years. We work with Crossroads Foundation Hong Kong to make these shoes available to those who can’t afford them.
Q How do you reduce your carbon footprint?
For the benefit of our customers and our environment, we apply environmental friendliness as a criterion when selecting new brands and products. We work with our suppliers to reduce packaging by reusing cardboard boxes and we have relinquished the use of plastic. Since December 2019, we no longer offer customers plastic-based shopping bags. If you forget to bring your own bag, you can purchase one of our ‘No More Plastic Bags For Me’ shopping bags. These cotton bags are priced at HK$28 of which HK$12 is donated to Plastic Free Seas to support its education and action campaigns about plastic pollution in society.
Q How do you diversify?
Diversity is Escapade Sports. We currently employ staff of six different nationalities. We were one of the first signatories of the Racial Diversity & Inclusion Charter for Employers, that was launched by the Equal Opportunities Commission in 2018.
Q Once a business is doing well, how do you ensure that it continues to do so?
There are no guarantees in our business. We had years of doing quite well and suddenly it flipped. Our best-selling brands opened concept stores next door to us and started competing with us. You really always have to stay on your toes, be nimble and react quickly.
For more on Escapade Sports and to shop online, visit www.escapade.com.hk
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