G: Tell us about your business:
Cybercandy sells sweets from all round the world – all sorts of unusual, fun, colourful, delicious and downright strange confectionery and sodas. We import them ourselves and we’re always looking out for new and different products. It could be giant Reese Peanut Butter cups from the US, Plopp chocolate from Sweden, Violet Crumble from Australia, lollies with real insects in, Jelly Beans, root beer, Spam Mints, Lucky Charms cereal, salty liquorice, Pocky, Chai Cola, Moomin candy…anything rare and amazing!
G: Why do you do it?
We love candy! We love fun packaging, colourful, bright products, and unashamedly we love to eat little treats and enjoy them…We want to share our discoveries with our customers and make the shopping experience fun and a little bit quirky.
G: What is special about your business?
We do a lot of products that no one else in the UK sells, and we have a huge and very varied range. We like to find new or limited edition products which people will enjoy tasting and our aim with the shopping experience is for customers to keep saying W O W – they are amazed that they have seen something they have not seen in years, or never seen before…often the brand is familiar but the variety is new for example Cadbury Snack from Australia, 5 flavours in one bar.
G: Why did you choose Shoreditch for your new store? Why did you choose Boxpark?
Shoreditch has a great vibe and lots of people who appreciate classic design. Boxpark was very appealing because we do import a lot of our products in 40’ shipping containers but we’d never thought of making a shop out of one! It’s a very exciting project and really catches a lot of the enthusiasm of Shoreditch. Our shopfit is a big departure for us, it’s kind of The Time Machine meets Willy Wonka… we wanted to make it very quirky and original with lots of things that make you go hmmmmm….
G: What do you think will be the main challenges developing your business in Shoreditch ?
It’s tricky luring people into a container… but I hope that once people are aware there’s an amazing new Cybercandy there full of treats they will make it a regular staging post. We can actually pack quite a lot of candy and soda into a container, we’ve had practice!
G: What would you say have been your most memorable experiences while developing your company/brand so far?
We’ve been moving Cybercandy forward every year since we started, and every shop has been a new experience. Probably making our first sale to someone we didn’t know was the most exciting moment, when we realized that it could be more than just a crazy dream. The events program we’ve been running over the last year has been very exciting too, taking Cybercandy on the road to shows like MCM, Eurogamer, HyperJapan, and really getting out to some of the places our customers go.
G: What were the main drivers of success in your company?
Hard work I think, we never stop thinking about candy and we have kept a tight team, funding each forward move organically. We also are lucky that we have and have had great and enthusiastic staff who have contributed in so many ways to taking the company onwards. We’ve had some really talented people working with us.
G: What does the future have in store for your company?
Always moving forward…we’re about to launch our own brand of soda which will be something very different, and there’s so much we’d like to do in that area, plus new shop designs, new areas to import from, our website is having a major overhaul, and there are new candy seasons all the time…
G: Who/what are your favorite CEOs/Businesses in Shoreditch?
We love Boxpark of course, and it’s brilliant for us having great neighbours like Mexway and Frae, no more soggy sandwich lunches! If we could drag ourselves off the park we’d probably not get much further than Allpress because the roasting smell is just irresistible.
Social links:
Website/Blog: www.cybercandy.co.uk
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/www.cybercandy.co.uk
