NALINI APPOINT OCCHIO AS THEIR NEW UK DISTRIBUTOR

 

MOA Sport has found a new UK home for its NALINI brand through OCCHIO.CC Limited. Having been without a distributor for a while, an agreement has been made with the new company and their UK distribution centre, based in North Devon. The arrangement also includes the sole rights to sell Campagnolo on-bike cycling clothing in the UK, for which MOA Sport and Nalini own the license to exclusively manufacture, sell and distribute.

The Occhio company, named after the Italian word for ‘eye’ and an expression shouted in the pro-peloton by Italian riders to mean ‘attenzione’ or ‘watch out’, will both distribute to the trade and sell direct to consumers via its own website.

The new home at www.occhio.cc aims to be fun, colourful and friendly, offering premium clothing along with exceptional customer service to consumers and retailers alike.  Co-owners of OCCHIO, Mark Sinclair and Mark Ressel, are no strangers to the commercial world and retail trade, with Sinclair having spent most of his working career in senior roles with brands like Nike and adidas, and Ressel having previously been a commercial director at Johnson and Johnson. Both are keen amateur cyclists and have spent the last year creating the new OCCHIO company, its infrastructure and website.

Sinclair explains his reasons for wanting to create OCCHIO:  

“My love of Nalini and the MOA Sport factory began back in 2008 when I was working at adidas to supply British Cycling, British Triathlon and Team Sky. Nalini was the factory of choice for creating the clothing for these high-performance demanding teams. To me, Nalini was an oasis of incredible product manufacturing know-how, with the best pro-cycling team supply history of any cycling clothing brand. They are so different compared to everything else out there and the brand has never been given the attention it deserves in the UK. With a history of dressing the greatest of champions such as Fignon, Roche, Indurain and Pantani, through supplying teams like Carrera, Cofidis and Astana in recent years, and now with Team DSM and Intermarché Wanty Gobert, how could this brand not be given a chance amongst cycling fans in the UK?”

With Nalini also offering the rights to distribute and sell the iconic Campagnolo on-bike clothing ranges, Sinclair said “it was a chance we couldn’t turn down. We felt that it was time to give both these beautiful brands a new UK home.”

Mr Mantovani (owner) and Alessandra Agostini (global sales manager) at Nalini:

“We are excited to be working with Occhio as our new distributor and e-commerce platform in the UK. We have been impressed with their passion for our brand, their attention to detail and the unique vision they have for building Nalini’s reputation in the UK.  To have an exclusive distributor in the way that we have ensures our brand gets 100% focus. We also love how they have merged our own passion for Italian style, fun and colour into their identity”

Sinclair and Ressel feel very protective about where the collections will be distributed, and they are clear that they wish to do everything they can to support IBDs, especially smaller boutiques and authentic independents. They also feel that this will allow them to carefully build the Nalini brand’s name in the UK. Their support will include a dropship service either to the retailers themselves, or direct to consumers from their own warehouse.

Occhio will also be working with Citrus-Lime to include the brands within its Cloud POS Supplier Integration platform. Speaking of the new partnership, Grant Hadwin, Head of Sales & Supplier Partnerships at Citrus-Lime, said: “Nalini is a great brand with a rich heritage, so we’re delighted to be working with Occhio to support the roll out of Nalini and Campagnolo to the UK cycle industry. We’ll be incorporating both brands in our Supplier Integration platform, which will give Independent Bike Dealers easy access to comprehensive product data as soon as they book their stock in."

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