Alessandro and Francesco are the Directors of one of the most talked about martial arts companies in recent years, Katanamart.

With thousands of visitors every month, its specialised and high-quality products, especially the Katanas and samurai swords, impress even the most ardent collector. That’s why we’re so interested in speaking to them about how it all started, and where they see the future.

1.- How did the idea of creating an online martial arts store come about?

Alessandro: Hello! Francesco already had an online martials shop for handmade items when I joined him. My contribution has been to develop into several online stores in various languages in order to reach the whole world. Why? Simply because the quality of the products is truly incredible.

2.- Why did you choose to focus on the world of martial arts?

Francesco: Because it is a world that we know well and has always been full of reliable friends and life partners. It seemed inevitable (he smiles).

3.- What products can users find in your shop?

Alessandro: Everything to do with Japanese martial arts. The products we have most expertise in are the samurai swords, especially thanks to Andrea who joined the team with over a decade of Japanese martial arts studies behind him. He has also attended several courses in Japan on this subject.

4.- Is there any product in particular that customers really love?

Francesco: it has to be the special and superior swords. I say that because these swords have an impressive quality to price ratio for replicas with the blades made in China. The ‘special’ category of samurai swords meets the needs of practitioners at martial arts schools really well.

5.- Which martial art do you prefer?

Francesco: We don’t have a favourite because we like to work closely with all practitioners. We try to put ourselves in their shoes to understand how we can make the best quality products that don’t have any defects or problems.

6.- What is the Katanamart philosophy?

Alessandro: Kaizen, which in Japanese means ‘change and improvement’. We are continuously changing and infinitely trying to improve.

7.- Who makes up the Katanamart team?

Alessandro: There are quite a few of us now. We have a quality control department with 5 employees, the logistics team has 3, the commercial team has 4 and then we have an administration team. In addition, we have an online department that deals with development and maintenance of websites and digital marketing.

We are growing exponentially in Europe, and we want to start putting roots down in North America next.

8.- What are the main challenges facing the company?

Alessandro: the main challenge is to be the number one brand for martial arts products in the world! We’d like to have an online store and a physical store in several countries where we can offer our customers the full range of products from the various Japanese martial arts.

9.- What does the future hold for Katanamart?

Francesco: the future of Katanamart is to be as big as possible and to offer our quality and experience anywhere that Japanese martial arts are practiced.

10.- Do you have plans to expand?

Alessandro: we have a detailed and ambitious business plan that we are already launching over the next few months. I can’t say too much, but in the coming weeks we will launch the first ecommerce app dedicated exclusively to martial arts…and that is just the beginning.

Summary

We’d like to thank Alessandro and Francesco for speaking to us and sharing their plans. We wish them the very best in all their endeavours and long may their success continue!