Eglove is a revolutionary glove- that is touchscreen friendly – enabling full use of your touchscreen phone without the need to remove your gloves – perfect for those outdoor enthusiasts – and never more so than in the weather we’re having right now! 

Available in muted and super bright colours – and different styles – Egloves are one of the market dominators – so I had a chat with the CEO James – who gave us a little insight into the Eglove background. You can visit their website here: https://www.eglove.co.uk

1. Can you please tell us a little about Eglove, the company and yourself? 

I started eGLOVE with an ex-colleague Neil who had managed to source touchscreen run gloves and ski gloves. This was in 2009/2010 when iPhones were in their infancy, so we decided to give it a go! Since then we have grown the business significantly – we now have over 100 different styles / colour options. Equestrian gloves have become the biggest market for us, closely followed by run. Neil left the business in 2015 although he stays up to date with everything, and Nikki, my wife joined me in 2018.

2. What in  your opinion, sets the Eglove aside from its market competitors? 

I’d say service, quality at a good price point and colours. We’ve been in this business a long time now, and our approach has always been to over deliver on our promises – we try to get gloves to customers faster than they expect, and be relaxed about returns / refunds / exchanges! Unlike many other companies, we try to offer loads of colour options – and whilst we sell more black / navy / brown gloves than the other colours, people are attracted by the colours!

   3. What was the inspiration behind the Eglove – I know you were a keen cyclist – from the inception of the idea – to manufacture, how was the journey for you? 

I’d say service, quality at a good price point and colours. We’ve been in this business a long time now, and our approach has always been to over deliver on our promises – we try and get gloves to customers faster than they expect, and be relaxed about returns / refunds / exchanges! Unlike many other companies, we try and offer loads of colour options – and whilst we sell more black / navy / brown gloves than the other colours, people are attracted by the colours!

This is a tough one… I suppose to start it was just that we wanted to solve an issue – gloves not working with touchscreens. As it’s grown, it becomes more about leaving your mark. Sometimes I forget that even though we are small – we still sell thousands and thousands of gloves every year. We get a miniscule number of issues, and many repeat buyers and compliments, so hopefully we have made peoples lives better in a small way. That’s a nice thought…

      4. What are your company ethics? 

Simply put – fairness / equality / environment. We pay on time or early – you’d be amazed how many of the world’s biggest companies use their dominance to leverage better supplier deals – 90 day payment terms for example – shocking really! We try to ensure that the people who work in the factories we use are treated well and have decent conditions that exceed the minimum requirements. Where we can we use recyclable materials – although that’s a challenge we need to be better at.

      5. You supply gloves to a lot of outdoor sport partakers – from equestrians, to cyclists and runners etc – is there any one particular group of athletes that demand your gloves over others? 

Equestrians – it’s a good market for us as its year round rather than seasonal – but also, having seen the mess that can be caused to hands when a horse bolts whilst being led for example, we know we have to make hard wearing gloves too… Rein grip is vital too!

      6.  Do you find, since the popularity of social media has grown – that so has the demand for your gloves?

I myself am guilty of videoing everything and posting to my page – I mean EVERYONE wants to see my ponies breath surely – lol – but I’m not alone in this phenomenon… so have you seen an increase in your glove sales, simply because they are touchscreen friendly, so we can photograph and video without the need to remove them? I think we have always been around in social media times – we don’t know what it was like before! Certainly our growth has been helped by social media and a number of people who were customers first, loved the product so became advocates and are influencers – we’re very lucky to have such a loyal group and when we launch a new product, I don’t truly relax until one of those guys tests it and gives me the thumbs up!

     7.  I have your a few pairs of your gloves, which I absolutely love – particularly this time of year – their bright colours mean it’s next to impossible to lose one, they keep my hands so warm and best of all I can text and operate my phone thanks to the screen touch technology.  In my opinion – your gloves obliterate any similar type gloves on the market – but yet I haven’t seen any Irish suppliers stock them yet – would you like to break into this market? 

If anyone reading this would like to be a stockist – how can they contact you? Ha, well thanks Oonagh – I think you fit into the category above – we’re grateful for your support! I guess for Nikki and I we’ll continue trying to supply our customers with the best gloves we can get for the price we think our customers are looking to pay. We’ll get it wrong along the way I am sure, but we’ll never stop trying to get it right! In terms of Ireland – 100% yes! We used to sell a fair bit to ROI before the “B” word but now everything is more complicated!! We’d love to get a partner over there – and would prefer a small / medium sized company to work with who share our approach, love of colour, and ethics… our partner email address is b2b@eglove.co.uk.

Hope everyone has found that of interest, and if you are ever in the UK at one of the many shows we do (there is always a strong Irish contingent) come and say hi!!

Check out the full range here eGLOVE Website.