We're 6 Years Old!
We're 6 years old! Well I certainly do feel like a 6 year old on Christmas with all these awesome outdoor products constantly surrounding us!
April 2010 saw the opening of Action Gear (then Action Cameras) and we've been on a fun journey ever since! When we started up we were the first in SA to sell GoPros, Drift and other action cam brands which have grown in popularity over the years as well as other brands which have come and gone over the years. It's been said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity so I guess we were very lucky be at the forefront of the growth of the action cam industry and I like to think that we played a massive role in introducing South Africa to this range of products.
Obviously we no longer just sell the cameras as we evolved our name to Action Gear in 2013 and widened our product range to include Drones, GPS's, Sports Watches, Power Solutions, Binoculars, Night Vision Scopes and any other interesting outdoor tech that we could get our hands on. But here's something you might not have known, it was actually you, our friends and customers who convinced us to make this change and widen our range. We had so many of our loyal GoPro customers asking for us to get them other gear that they wanted because, as they said, we offer the best service of any retailer in SA (yes, we actually have that comment and others framed on our Raving Fan Wall).
My business partner and co-founder of the Action Gear brand Dave Davies has been a driving force behind the growth which we've had over the years. Between him and I we've come up with great ideas which worked brilliantly (like becoming leaders in the drone industry) and other ideas which were spectacular failures (like the TV show which we ran with for a few months!) but all in all we seem to do more right than wrong as, together with our team we've grown Action Gear into one of South Africa's leading eCommerce companies. We can actually say that now with confidence as we won a 1st prize for Best Customer Service in last year's eCommerce Awards!
Over the years we've proudly won a number of awards (which you can read about here) but we really believe that the best is yet to come as we continue to improve our product offering and the delivery services. We know that there's statistics about how many companies make it to 6 years but without knowing the exact stats we know that we've had good times and bad but we've stuck it out and we're here to stay. We want to become a household name and a favourite online shop and destination for outdoorsy, sporty and adventurous people. We look forward to sharing this journey with you!
By the way, did you know that we've just launched an updated version of the Action Gear website? Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments section below.