British manufacturer exploiting a niche

A topical story for Wimbledon fortnight - here is Europe’s only remaining manufacturer of tennis balls, doing well by being imaginative about how to develop their competitive advantage. This is a great story for introducing niche markets and specialisation, with a video showing the manufacturing process which includes attaching two figure-eight-shaped pieces of cloth to the rubber balls by hand, not machine, as owner Derek Price insists this is still the most accurate way.

Having decided they could not compete with low-cost Asian manufacturers, Price of Bath focussed instead on new products. As a result, they now specialise in tennis balls for tennis clubs and coaches, promotional and personalised balls of all different colours - and larger, children’s tennis balls. Now they say that production is slowly increasing, although nowhere near the output of 80,000 a week they once had. They have just produced a run of pink tennis balls for Evian water, and have also found a ‘retro market’ for old-fashioned white balls. They have plans to build a new factory on a site they have owned for three decades, but are cautious of speaking about other new ideas they have for that site, as Mr Price says that his best developments - including those for golf and squash balls - have been eagerly pounced on by other, bigger, manufacturers in the past. But you can see some of the range they already offer on their website, which is the source of most of their sales.

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