How lockdown drove growth at SharkNinja

On paper, it looks like home appliances firm SharkNinja should have been hit hard by Covid-19. It manufactures in China, its focus is European growth and it sells its products in shops that have been closed for three months.

Yet sales across its two brands are up by 25 per cent, it’s kitchen brand, Ninja, has never been stronger and the Leeds-based company appointed 30 staff during lockdown.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, the firm’s European president Matt Broadway said: “We lost eight weeks of production in China at the start of the year, which was really difficult, particularly as the business was so strong at that point. We were overselling versus our forecast so it was quite a challenge.”

He added: “But then we recovered from that and then the UK went into lockdown and since then sales have just got stronger and stronger.”

There are two sides to the business: vacuum cleaners (Shark) and kitchen worktop appliances (Ninja).

Last year, Shark overtook Dyson as the best-selling corded upright vacuum cleaner brand. Meanwhile, sales of Ninja products have grown dramatically during the last few months.

“We’ve always been about 90 per cent Shark about 10 per cent Ninja but that’s really turned around this year,” Mr Broadway said. “Our multi-cooker is now number one in the UK. We’ve also got three or four new Ninja product launches between now and the end of the year.”

The company employs 130 staff at its European headquarters in Leeds and about 100 engineers in London. It also employs 60 people at a call centre in Newcastle.

SharkNinja has a retail distribution warehouse in Sheffield and an ecommerce distribution centre in Gateshead.

It hopes to return head office staff who have been working at home over the last few weeks to the office in September.

SharkNinja didn’t furlough any staff apart from 100 Shark brand ambassadors who work in Currys PC World.

Mr Broadway said there were two effects of the pandemic on the company. “Firstly sales have gone up - people need more of the things we sell when they’re based at home,” he said. “Sales of cleaning devices have absolutely sky rocketed and demand for cooking devices and kitchen appliances went up.”

He added: “Secondly, we saw some pretty seismic shifts in where people were buying from.

“Obviously sales through traditional retailers went down and there was a huge shift to online channels through retailers like Amazon and AO. Argos did pretty well because of their click and collect service in Sainsbury’s.”

A few years ago, SharkNinja was predominantly a North American-focused business. It was founded in Canada by Mark Rosenzweig. The UK was one of the first international markets it invested in.

A major focus before the pandemic was replicating its huge growth in the UK and North America in mainland Europe, including