Dutch shoe retailer Omoda has expanded into women’s and men’s clothing from over a hundred brands. COO Jan Baan wants to make a difference by surprising and inspiring customers: “The more complicated it is, the more unique we are.”
Degradation
Omoda is moving into fashion because it notices a gap between the convenience of online shopping and the charm of offline shopping. The shift of sales to online has caused a degradation of the fashion market, Baan believes. “Only in very few cases, it is about the actual garment and the feeling you get when you wear it”, he says in an interview with RetailTrends.
Omoda wants to recreate that feeling, but online. The retailer wants to be particularly selective in its collection: “We want to position ourselves as a fashion boutique retailer, with a select collection but the convenience and scale of a large retailer.” The company will launch with a total of 4,500 garments from 125 different brands. They include well-known names like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, as well as (smaller) Dutch labels like Scotch & Soda and Josh V.
30 models
To give customers additional inspiration, each item of clothing get incorporated into a complete outfit in three different ways. Moreover, each look is also photographed on three models so that the customer can better see whether a particular item will suit them. Besides, shoppers can also buy an entire outfit.
Omoda engaged no fewer than thirty models for this, which represents quite an investment. “Nobody does this, because it is a lot of work and therefore almost impossible to achieve”, says Baan. “I always say: the more complicated it is, the more unique we are.”
Currently, the clothing will only be available online in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France and Austria. The collection is the same in each country. For the time being, no clothes will be sold in the 28 physical stores, even though that would be a logical step. “If we want to sell clothes in our stores, we will have to move to other premises.”
