Home Is Where The Heart Is: Manchester Will Always Be Special For Specscart
A few days back, we were at The University of Manchester to attend the inaugural MEC showcase organised by the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre. The hours spent at the campus brought back pure nostalgia. And why not? We will always have a special corner in our hearts for the birthplace of Specscart as it has been integral in helping us reach where we are today.
Not just The University of Manchester, we also owe a great deal to the beautiful city of Manchester. The world’s first industrial city never disappoints an enterprising person. If you have a vision and are dedicated to putting in the work, Manchester will stand with you and support you in scaling heights. Specscart is a living example.
We love to talk about Manchester. Here is how it has played a crucial role in helping us shape Specscart from scratch to how it stands today.
How it all started: Back in the University
To appear for his final semester exams, our founder Sid Sethi was in urgent need of a pair of prescription glasses, after he had broken his only pair. He went from shop to shop in the city centre market struggling to find a decent pair at reasonable prices. Apart from the high prices, what also left him disappointed was a poor customer experience. He did buy a pair after spending a hefty sum. However, the glasses arrived way after his exams were over.
Two months after this incident, Sid was busy preparing a business pitch for the Albert Gubay Award at The University of Manchester. His pitch contained in detail how the idea of Specscart was to be materialised and how Specscart would address some of the major problems plaguing the eyewear industry. Sid’s above-mentioned experience at the high-street shops had helped him identify three major problems — unreasonable prices, high turnaround time, and poor customer experience.
Well, Sid won the award and was provided with a free retail space in Walkden and a cash injection. Specscart was no longer just a business pitch. The awarded retail space was now our inaugural store.
A year later, we would go on to win another award organised at the university — the Venture Further Award — which would help us venture further in the eyewear industry.
Walkden inaugural store
Starting off from Manchester
Starting operations from the inaugural store at Walkden was certainly not an easy task, but we had done our groundwork really well. Just to put things into perspective, our founder had travelled to various destinations across the globe to understand how the industry works.
What also helped us in our resolve to scale up our business was the constant support of Mancunians. We were a young enterprise with a vision to revolutionise the eyewear industry with giants staring right at us. The community at Walkden accepted us as their friendly neighbourhood store, contributing to our business expansion.
Covering the Manchester region first
Before moving beyond Manchester, we wanted to make sure that a Specscart store was easily accessible to every Mancunian. Through our thicks and thins, these lovely people have always stood with us like a rock and their valuable reviews and feedback are what drive us to leave no stones unturned to work towards our vision.
Walkden 2.0
In 2018, we expanded further in Manchester with our second store going live in Bury. And then came the big move of shifting our inaugural store to a four times larger retail space in the same shopping centre in 2021. Well, leaving our inaugural store was emotional but with the bigger picture in our mind, this was a necessary decision.
With our third store being launched in Urmston in early 2022, we can proudly say that we have covered the entire Manchester region. This doesn’t mean that we will sit and relax. We will constantly strive to offer the best Specscart experience to all Mancunians.
Moving beyond Manchester
The journey from Walkden 2017 to Urmston 2022 has been an exceptional one. Huge credits need to go to the city of Manchester for making us feel like it’s very own.
To move on to bigger things, we know that we will have to expand our retail presence beyond Manchester and we are already on our way as well. While we do so, we will carry all our lovely experiences and memories gathered at Manchester forward because we know that it will be of great help to us wherever we go.
