About Plug Leon
Plug Leon was founded in 2018 by Léon Gissing driven by his two passions: football and fashion. Starting with a £160 loan from his parents to buy his first pair of trainers and flip them online for double, Léon started his sourcing journey in the midst of hypebeast and sneakerhead mania queuing up outside Footlocker and JD Sports every other Saturday before day break. This quickly developed into a more serious hobby where he built up a selling profile on eBay and Depop and alongside school mates sought out new connections to source more pairs in volume. Quickly realising the trainer reselling market dynamics Léon knew that the other individuals he was meeting in the queues AKA "bulk resellers" margins' still left room for extra juice on top whilst remaining competitive with the going end client rate.
Finding the customer
Now it was about finding the customer, and who better than professional athletes? Following a chance encounter with former top 10 American tennis player Jack Sock who purchased 3 pairs off Léon in July 2018 the same year he won the doubles at the Wimbledon Championships and encouraged the creation of the Plug Leon Instagram page, Léon realised that the tennis players only came to town twice a year. Footballers on the other hand were here all year round and in fact far more interested in fashion. The go to market strategy which crystallised at the start of the 18/19 season was fairly farfetched, wait outside the stadiums with your business card and chase after the players' cars driving out, knock on the window, and instead of asking for an autograph hand out your business card.
The first breakthrough
This strategy once led to Olivier Giroud opening his glove compartment and jokingly showing Léon just how many Plug Leon cards he had amassed over the first half of the season but it also led to Léon's first breakthrough. Reiss Nelson was Léon's first footballer client, who funnily enough came following a Snapchat add through a mutual connection, not a crazed 14 year old handing out his business card. However to this day, if you question him on it, Léon ardently defends his key marketing strategy which helped: "get the name out there". A smooth and honest service with Reiss led to Arsenal academy graduates Joe Willock, Emile Smith Rowe, and Bukayo Saka all shopping with Léon. The ball was officially rolling. Word started to spread and soon enough Léon was dealing with regular Premier League players as well as clients in France, Italy and Spain.
Going international
COVID rocket propelled the business as shops were closed and social media became the world's single forum for social activity, Léon was also able to better-manage his time with online school. Plug Leon was becoming more of a mainstay in the football world as consecutive trips to Germany sponsored by Breel Embolo and Marcus Thuram (playing for Borussia Mönchengladbach at the time) led to Léon starting the new wave of international personal shopping visits. From 2022 to 2024 the business saw a period of transformational growth as it pivoted to providing clients with more of a hands on service, moving away from an exclusively sourcing model to essentially acting as a moving shop providing curated personal shopping for clients up and down the country and around the world.
Today
The Plug Leon team has grown over the years to a team of 5 with Léon looking to take more of a hands-off role towards the start of 2027 as he continues to pursue his academics at the University of Cambridge. However, the mission remains the same: providing our growing client book with an exclusive luxury personal shopping experience of the highest quality offering an unparalleled range of services.
