Pajak Sport
Success made of down
The Pająk family sewed their first down jackets themselves, in their own bathtub. Today it sells sportswear for PLN 6 million a year. The company's founders were able to adapt the strategy to changes taking place in an increasingly competitive industry.
Text: Magdalena Lemańska | Photos: Marek Ogień | reprint: www.forbes.pl
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He watched the family business from the very beginning. Today, Wojciech Pająk (in the photo) manages it together with his parents.
I remember such a picture - my mother locked in the bathroom with a sewing machine placed on the sink and the entire bathtub filled with down. This is how the first things we sewed were created - down mittens. It was not yet specialized equipment at that time, only then we started sewing down jackets, says Wojciech Pająk. This is his earliest memory of the company he runs today.
In 1983, when his parents - Ewa and Andrzej Pająk - launched the Pajak Sport brand, Wojciech was a few years old. Down jackets and sleeping bags were made of any suitable fabric available on the market and stuffed with down brought by Pająki to Bielsko-Biała from nearby farms.
They sold out like hell. Straight from a private apartment and at sports markets, because there were no real sports stores back then
- More and more people learned about products through word of mouth marketing. It happened that we were woken up on Saturday morning by the doorbell, and behind the door there was a whole bus of Yugoslavs who had just come to Bielsko for a company trip. By the way, they came to buy jackets, someone told them that they were made on the tenth floor of one of the city blocks - laughs Wojciech Pająk.
PRIVATE APARTMENT QUICKLY BROUGHT OUT OF USE AS A FACTORY, and in 1986 the family opened its first production plant in Bielsko-Biała. There she started sewing synthetic sleeping bags, which were joined by mountain backpacks. There was a period of prosperity on the outdoor market, and new players decided to take advantage of it. In 1989, Yeti was launched, in 1990 - Alpinus, ACM from Wrocław began to produce outdoor clothing under the Bergson brand. Later, however, networks began to deal the cards in this industry. In 1999, Go Sport was launched in Poland, and in 2001, Decathlon. The rapidly growing chains of sports stores were one of the factors that weakened local outdoor producers - over time, they began to focus on their own brands.
sports goods market in Poland in 2020, according to PMR data
WAS WORTH
11,2
MLD PLN
The opening of new supermarkets that sold cheap products produced in Asia also worked to the detriment of sportswear producers. In Pajak, problems requiring a change in strategy began with Poland's accession to the European Union.
-The market has changed: the demand for the products we previously produced has decreased, because Western outdoor brands produced in Asia have become popular in Poland. Producing in Poland, we were unable to compete on price, so we decided to focus on down products. Polish down has always been considered the best in the world - its thermal properties, expansion and purity make our products look different from Asian ones - says Pająk.
To fully use the plant's production capacity and increase revenues, Pajak also sewed for other companies.
Today he doesn't do that anymore.
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Three quarters of the production of the Bielsko-based company under its own brand goes abroad. Mainly to Asia, but also to Germany, Scandinavia and France.
-Our Asian customers really pay attention to the fact that we are a family company that uses local raw materials. This trend is also visible among customers from Scandinavia, says Pająk. His family is involved in sports.
My father was a skier and water skier, and my mother was a swimmer. My siblings and I had been skiing in the Polish national team since childhood, and then we were closely associated with snowboarding, because our father founded the first snowboard association in Poland. My brother was a multiple medalist of the junior world championships in this discipline, and I also won a medal in snowboarding in the junior world championships - says Pająk.
Today he also practices downhill cycling.
He stayed in the family business as the only child of the founders. His siblings made their lives in other industries.
-It came out naturally, I just started coming here, and over time I noticed the potential of this company and wanted to take it to new tracks - he says.
Pajak Sport sells its products in its own online store and in other online stores and in stationary outdoor stores. It has only one flagship store, in Bielsko-Biała. In Poland, most of the company's sales come from the Internet, half of sales in other European markets come from the Internet. The Pajak company plans to have a network of showrooms that would support online sales.
THE COMPANY'S REVENUE THIS YEAR will reach approximately PLN 6 million, with PLN 4.7 million a year before.
Since 2013, Pajak Sport has been cooperating with Andrzej Bargiel. It prepares suits for his expeditions (the first one was made before the expedition to Shishapangma), and also equips his team with down sleeping bags.
The company received an award for the Quest4Two sleeping bag for two people and produces the warmest sleeping bag in the world. The limit temperature at which you can stay there is -73 degrees Celsius.
OUR ASIAN CLIENTS
PAY VERY MUCH ATTENTION TO THIS
THAT WE ARE A FAMILY BUSINESS
Wojciech Pająk,
Pajak Sport
The properties of down mean that Pajak does not intend to give up using it, despite criticism of this filling on the market.
-We do not harm animals, because obtaining down from live geese is strictly prohibited. Today, this raw material is obtained from geese intended for slaughter, says Pająk.
According to him, down cannot be replaced with synthetic insulation in mountain clothing.
-The compression and thermal properties of down clothing today surpass all synthetic products available on the market. The down jacket weighs 300 g and can be compressed to the size of an apple. This can't be done with synthetic materials and it won't be long before someone comes up with a comparable substitute, he believes.
Changes introduced over the years have resulted in growing sales and today Pajak no longer sews for other brands.
-Spider managed to survive thanks to the consistency of perseverance. The early 2000s were difficult for the outdoor industry, but I think the industry is experiencing a renaissance now. Also due to the pandemic and the fact that outdoor activities can be practiced even now, says Ranita Sobańska, former creative director of 4F.
According to PMR, in 2019 the sports goods market in Poland was worth PLN 11.7 billion. In 2020, due to the pandemic, it dropped to PLN 11.2 billion, but sportswear was the second most frequently mentioned category (after shoes) on which Poles intended to spend money.
-At the beginning of the pandemic, we had some concerns because several customers did not want to collect their previously placed orders. But as soon as the first lockdown ended, people went to Poland en masse to run, ride bikes, camp, and now winter swim, so the outdoor industry entered a paradoxical period of prosperity - says Pająk.
Therefore, he calmly plans the next years and does not think about looking for an investor for the company, much less selling it. The main assumption for now is to increase the brand value, and we will see what the future holds, he says.
MAGDALENA LEMAŃSKA
FORBES MARCH 2021