A young man’s passion for designer trainers became the spark for multi-million pound fashion business Crepslocker. Mo Patel was living in a two-up, two-down terrace in Blackburn when he first had the idea to sell rare and coveted trainer styles after struggling to find the ones he wanted himself.
He started out by simply selling Nike Huaraches In 2014 on auction website eBay. Now he oversees a team of 14 selling thousands of wanted, rare and designer trainers by the likes of Yeezy, Dior, Nike and Louis Vuitton across the world with clients including footballers and superstars.
The online business became such a success that Mo has just realised another of his dreams - by opening his own bricks-and-mortar store in the centre of Manchester, with a stylish unit on King Street. Inside the store there is a quite dazzling array of rare and unusual trainers and designer accessories - including an entire hero wall dedicated to rare and coveted Nikes, Yeezy Belugas for £325, designer Dior Jordans priced at £10,495 and coveted Louis Vuitton trainers for around £1,000 - £2,500.
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Looking around the stylish store, Mo, 36, beams: “I’ve started from nowhere and now I’m looking at other stores across the UK. Nobody believed that this could work, yet now here I am with my own store in the centre of Manchester, it was always my dream and now it is reality.”
It all started with Mo’s passion for unusual trainers. Back in 2014 Mo was working for his dad Naz Patel and his uncles’ furniture business at Gordon Mill in Blackburn, while living in his modest £72,000 two-up, two-down terraced house. It was then the idea for Crepslocker first hatched.
Mo explains: “I had a passion for designer clothing and trainers, and Instagram was very new back then. The majority of brands, when they released anything new, would put it on Insta for people to see, so I made an Instagram account, I called it Crepslocker and everything started from there really.”
Mo sold his first trainers on auction website eBay after seeing how in demand some styles were becoming. He says: “There was a trainer, the Huarache Nike, that cost £100 in the shops, but I could see people were reselling them online for £200. So I went down to my local JD Sports, purchased five pairs and basically started selling them on eBay.”
But Mo soon realised the snag in this plan. “I had to pay eBay 10 per cent for every sale, so I thought 'hang on, I could do this myself'. So I started selling from Instagram.”
At the start he would pack all the trainers to send out to customers on his living room floor - but as business expanded he would borrow his auntie’s house and father’s garden as a better backdrop for the photos on his Instagram. He recalls: “In the cold winter months, I would drive around Blackburn looking for places where I could take cool shots of the trainers, these would include outdoor restaurants with fancy furniture to graffiti art sprayed walls in and around Blackburn, it was cold, I had my gloves on, but my dedication and motivation did not allow me to stop.”
Within a year, Mo was making enough money from buying and reselling coveted trainers to see that he could make a dedicated business out of it. He says: “My dad could see I was doing this on the side and it was my passion. I did it for a year, and in 2015 I started doing it full time. He let me use an office in the mill and by that point I was making £3,500- £4,500 a month in sales.”
Using the same business model, he started to venture into the designer end of the market - seeing that anything that came in limited editions could be covetable and profitable on the resale market. Mo says: “Because a lot of brands are selling things in limited quantity to keep them exclusive, it pushes up the prices because people really want them.
"It’s exactly the same concept with watches, cars, handbags, anything with a supply and demand issue, prices will get pushed up because people are desperate to get hold of them. People want something others don’t have and will pay to have that.”
He gives the example of some orange Louis Vuitton trainers that originally retailed for £955 - but Crepslocker are selling them for £2,500 - as, Mo says: “People who follow the brand know they’re not going to get them. The general consumer would have to pre-order way in advance to get them at that retail price and even then there are no guarantees”
By 2017, he had launched his own Crepslocker website, but was still packing stock on his living room floor. But by 2018 Mo says Crepslocker had turned over its first million - and has witnessed further growth in turnover every year since then.
Meanwhile, the business has now taken over two whole floors of his dad’s mill as its continues with its rapid expansion. The Manchester store will be followed by more in the months and years ahead, he says.
Mo said: “We are turning over in the millions just from the online side, and now with the physical store it’s just adding to the offering. I just knew this was the line of work I wanted to be in and now I want to take it to the next level and be the best in the industry.
"We are not here to compete with anyone, it’s different level. I always say I do my own thing, I stay in my own lane, everything in life is easier when you don’t concern yourself with what everybody else is doing and concentrate on your own business."
Mo now has a team of 14 employees as well as his family on board - including younger brother Hamza, 23, as the head buyer, whose job it is to source those in-demand trainers. Middle brother Ray, 35, handles finance for the business. “Without my brothers and the team I would not be here today. You are only as good as your team and you are nothing without your team," Mo says.
Brands like Nike and Yeezy often operate a raffle system online for customers to snap up their most in-demand items, so Crepslocker's team work on buying and selling via a consignment model with buyers to secure the most exclusive items for resale. Mo said they have also built a strong and trusted relationship with sellers globally to secure the most exclusive items.
“When I started out and was building up the business I’d be going out in the middle of the night meeting people at service stations just to buy the trainers," Mo laughs. "Now it’s such a huge growth market.”
Through lockdown there was an even bigger move towards “comfort fashion” with trainers and streetwear proving more popular than ever. Mo says: “It’s now all about Air Jordans, Yeezys, people want fashion but they want comfort too.”
The success of the business allowed Mo to swap his two-up, two-down for a detached mansion in Lancashire - a house he had always driven past and dreamed one day would be his in Blackburn. He now lives there with his wife and their sons Adam 8, and Haris, 4.
He has a walk-in wardrobe with some 600 pairs of trainers of his own that he has collected over the years - many now worth a small fortune in themselves thanks to the rarity of them. In one example, trainers that Crepslocker sold for £500 just a couple of years ago are now selling for £7,000 plus online.
When we meet, Mo is wearing his Nike x Sacai and admits he “only wears the super exclusives” now. He laughs: “I’ve got that many trainers but it’s what I love. It’s my passion for fashion that has got me where I am today.”
The brand has won a host of famous customers and clients, all just as keen to snag those exclusive designer items. It includes a host of top Premier League footballers and influencers.
Mo has even become something of a celebrity himself, although until now he has always sought to keep his identity something of a secret. In his early social media posts he would cover his face with a yellow smiley emoji, to keep the air of mystique about him.
“When I’m sat having a burger at Archie’s, I’ll have kids coming up wanting to know if it’s me saying: ‘mate are you Crepslocker’ because they’ve seen me on Snapchat the same day wearing that same outfit and recognised me.”
He adds: “The reason I hid my identity, it started from 2014, when some of the brands didn’t want us to resell at that point. So if I was going in to a shop as Mo, if they found out I was Crepslocker, they wouldn’t want to serve me. Even today it’s become a thing now - I just don’t show my face."
Mo saw the demand for Crepslocker in Manchester when he was invited to install a pop-up store inside Harvey Nichols Menswear floor in 2019 - and turned over £100,000 of stock in just a couple of days. He says: “The First pop up we ever did we had people coming from all over the country for it. In just one day at Harvey Nichols they turned over £100,000.
"We were then approached by Flannels Fashion to do a pop up in their Liverpool store which was also a success. From that point I knew I needed to have a space in Manchester.”
“My dad was saying are you sure you want a shop? But I was like a dog with a bone, we looked at about 20 properties. We looked at the Northern Quarter but we needed something in the perfect location.
"Then King Street came up and it was always just the coolest place to be wasn’t it?
"We hope to bring the coolness out again, it’s got that Covent Garden vibe now. It was the main spot when I was growing up for high end designer shopping, I can remember when Armani used to be located there.”
As to his advice to other would-be entrepreneurs out there, Mo has a positive message to share. He says “Pursue your dreams, stick at it, you’ve got to chase your dreams and believe in yourself. Nothing comes easy in life, you must work hard for it but if you want it badly enough, you will get there!”
His dad Naz is now retired but is so proud to see what his sons have built. Mo smiles: “Dad loves it, he will get together at the weekend and bring his mates to pay a visit to the store. It’s a proud moment for him to see what his sons have built in central Manchester.
“But now we’re already looking at the next destinations in London and Dubai.”
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