Selling clothes on the Internet requires its own solution

1. Text Cees Steijger
Leatherfactory facts
.nl
Founded Started in 2009 by Leder International
Market share the only professional B2C online solution for
specialist leatherwear shops in the Netherlands
Forecast Further growth and market share in Europe
through white labelling.

2. eCOMMERCE
Selling clothes on the Internet requires its own solution
Haute Content
There’s something special about web shops that offer clothing for sale.
After all, when it comes to ready-to-wear clothing, aspects such as size
and the customer’s experience of the goods are all-important.
L
eatherfactory is a customer of the webshop solution for the ready-to-wear trade. Leder International offers its customers
wholesaler Leder International, which Leatherfactory.nl is a unique webshop that is fully – the specialist clothing shops – with three
is based in Venlo. This town in Lim- devoted to the online sale of top-quality leather options. The first option is Stock Access,
burg is a logistical hub close to Germany jackets for women, men and children. What makes the B2B option that provides access to the
and with excellent connections to the Euro- web shops that sell clothing so special is that the collection. This enables retailers to order
pean hinterland. Leder International’s dis- correct size is all-important in ready-to-wear products for the physical shop. The second
tribution centre is located nearby in Reuver, clothes. So a lot of information has to be provided option is the Whitelabel B2C option for
from where this specialist in leather cloth- in order to avert returns as much as possible. retailers that have their own web shop –
ing distributes its products to the European the option used by LeatherFactory.nl. This
countries and to the Middle East and Africa Simplicity “A primary option provides all the functionality for
(EMEA). Leder International is a major
international player and Leatherfactory is
requirement is that the web
shop is easy to use, so that
“With our extra sales without purchases. Thirdly,
there is the Stock Online B2B option
now the market leader in online leather
clothing. The company has its own design-
you can proceed to the buy
button in three steps, for
web shop, for retailers without a webshop that still
want to benefit from the advantages of the
ers and outsources production to countries
such as China, Pakistan and India. When
instance, but it must also be
easy to pay and there must
we must Internet. Examples of this include online
ordering in the physical shop. Several
we visited the company’s headquarters
we could not fail to notice the enormous
be bullet-proof procedures
for returning goods,” says be able to specialist leather shops have now chosen
one or more options.
number of leather swatches, neatly grouped
according to colour and type. “We’ve just
Rob Westerhof of Leather-
factory.nl. “For us there’s provide the Flexibility “And, of course, every
launched our 2010/2011 winter collec-
tion,” explained Andre Kuijpers, manager
an extra challenge and that
is the product experience. consumer combination of options is possible,” adds
Andre. “Because the bottom line is to
of Leder International. “For us this means
the end of a busy period during which we
How do you add that? With
our webshop, we must be with the make it easy for our retailers and their cus-
tomers. We want to provide them with a
developed and manufactured the new col-
lections and showed them to our customers
able to provide the consum-
er with tools for experienc- tools for very professional extra service without any
fuss so that the maximum result in terms
at various international trade fairs. We used
the opportunity of the trade fairs – such as
ing the product – the leather
jacket of your choice – and experienc- of sales and customer satisfaction can be
achieved.” And Andre is already looking to
the recent one in Düsseldorf - to discuss
our online vision and approach with our
so this means excellent
photographic material with ing the the future. “After the Netherlands, we are
going to roll this approach out in Germany
distributors and retail partners.
The talks revealed that existing cus-
a zoom-in capability that
goes down to stitch-level product” and Austria and after that we’re going
further. The advantage of the TIE Kinetix
tomers have a great need of supporting and a real catwalk where the e-commerce approach is its flexibility and
online services from Leder International. consumer can see a model their international experience so we don’t
The next logical step was to create a web wearing the jacket. The re- need to concern ourselves about using it locally or regionally.
platform for retailers that could be used for tailers that we do business We can continue to focus on our core business: offering fash-
such things as White Labelling. Because of with are particularly im- ionable leather clothes in the EMEA.” Fine. So what trends
the enormous growth in use of the Inter- pressed with this so-called can we expect to see next winter? “I predict that tight lambs-
net, existing customers also needed Leder haute content, and all the leather women’s trousers will be a hit,” says Rob Westerhof.
International to add an online sales channel more so because they can “Although, surprisingly, warm cow-leather jackets will do
as an extra service for its customers. implement this webshop in very well in the Middle East. We’ve just received a large order
Leatherfactory opted for the advanced their own house style as a from Jordan.” Clearly Leder International also has a large
TIE Kinetix’ MamboFive Commerce Suite white label.” amount of flexibility in its collection.
TIE ~ 1/2010 ~ P23