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In a year marred with lockdowns and restrictions, Belgian shoe chain Schoenen Torfs was able to limit the damage as costs were cut and e-commerce boomed.
E-commerce boom
Last year, Covid pushed the chain’s sales down 18 % to 123 million euros. Physical stores even lost a third of their sales, but the huge surge in online sales (+ 74 %) made up for most of the losses.
In a year where stores were forced to close for three months, achieving a modest net profit of 0.1 million euros is rather a success. A restructuring, renegotiating rents and government support (like furlough) gave the company just enough breathing space to remain out of the red.
Online as profitable as offline
During the first half of 2021, sales still were 10 % lower than pre-Covid levels, but CEO Wouter Torfs thinks his company will achieve comparable sales figures for the full year. “Especially the children’s shoe sales have recovered well: they are necessary purchases as they need to be replaced faster due to wear and tear and becoming to small”, he says in Belgian newspaper De Tijd.
The company’s webshop keeps on growing and is now worth a quarter of total sales: “A new era is upon us: the shift towards online is speeding up and will be lasting.” The CEO says his eponymous company has succeeded in “making an online sale of shoes as profitable as a sale in a physical store”, as returns have dropped under 20 %. Due to this search for profitability, however, the company felt obligated to close its Dutch webshop.
