Claesens was founded in 1993 by Maarten Klaassen, Gerard den Boer, and his wife Deetje. Maarten is responsible for sales, Deetje designs the collections, and Gerard is in charge of finance.
Although the retail world of the past may have lost some of its shine, Gerard is optimistic about the future. “We were late in launching our own webshop, but we are glad we made the step and now gain a lot of information and insights from all the data. Both business (B2B) orders and consumer purchases are still coming in despite the corona period. It’s just a lot less personal.”
“Running a clothing brand in the ’90s and ’00s meant having hundreds of retailers visit you. Together, you would discuss fabrics, fits, and colors. Our network consisted of around 600 to 700 buyers and retailers, mostly small independent clothing shop owners. From Maastricht to Delfzijl, they all came by — or we visited them,” Gerard recalls enthusiastically, only to conclude shortly after: ‘das war einmal.’ "With the arrival of the internet, for the most part only the big players have remained. They don’t look at fabrics and colors, they mainly look at revenue."
“A lot of people blame the internet for everything,” but Gerard doesn’t take his coffee that bitter. In fact, he is very enthusiastic about all the possibilities that e-commerce offers. Okay, one more nostalgic reflection then, because Gerard notices another change, namely in consumer behavior:
"In the past, all winter coats were bought in August before the start of the school year. In fact, if you were too late, they were already sold out. But now you see that people only buy a winter coat when it actually gets cold. In November, or in the case of a mild winter, sometimes only in December. By then, winter items are already on sale in most stores." Fortunately, Claesens’ collection is a little more resistant to fashion trends thanks to the many enduring bestsellers in their relatively stable “never out of stock” collection.
Claesens is a clothing brand for the whole family, but best known for its childrenswear, especially underwear and sleepwear. “There was so much demand for well-fitting underwear for children. That’s where we gained huge popularity when we started our brand — it was a bull’s-eye.” The Claesens collection revolves around quality and the ‘always right’ feeling. The brand has many loyal customers who buy nothing else but Claesens, both for their children and for themselves. “About 75% of our revenue comes from childrenswear.” The target group? Mothers, of course, mainly from urban areas.
Claesens entered e-commerce relatively late, about 7 years ago. The fashion brand was already available earlier through major well-known retailers such as Kleertjes.com and Wehkamp. Their own webshop was launched in 2015 and ran on custom software developed by web builder DutchDrops. Gerard: “Still the best system; I have full confidence in the knowledge and expertise of founder Robbert de Smit.”
In the meantime, the Claesens webshop has grown successfully, creating the need for a transition. The choice fell on the German e-commerce software Shopware. Claesens was one of the first Dutch webshops to switch to Shopware 6, the latest version released in 2020. "The Buckaroo payment plugin for Shopware 6 fits perfectly; everything is extremely well organized."
You are currently using credit card payments, PayPal, and iDEAL via Buckaroo, and recently added Apple Pay and Bancontact to your wishlist. Why specifically these payment methods?
"German consumers in particular prefer to pay with PayPal. I personally also like to pay with PayPal because the checkout process is so easy and fast. That’s also why I’d like to integrate Apple Pay into the website, since Apple Pay also offers a quick checkout."
"For our Belgian consumers, we recently activated Bancontact via Buckaroo. It seems to be a good move, as we can see it generates a lot of payments.”
“The focus is now mainly on expansion in Belgium. Furthermore, maintaining a webshop — or actually two, also for B2B — is quite a lot of work. Especially when you have to enter products with many variations, such as sizes and colors, and ensure that stock levels are accurate. This is even more challenging when you also sell via platforms such as Bol.com. Shopware 6 is still so new that we sometimes run into issues; I think it just needs a bit more time to mature. Not all apps from Shopware 5 are ready yet for Shopware 6.” And regarding payment methods, how do you feel about gift cards? “Yes, good idea.” And about new revenue models like subscription services? “I’m personally not a big fan of subscriptions, but I do see how it could work well for underwear. We’ll think about it. But everything in due time.”
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