French fashion chain Kiabi is looking for Belgian expansion, with a first Belgian franchise shop opening in April before moving to the Dutch-speaking North next year. Belgium is a test market for the chain’s increasing commitment to circularity, managing director Jerôme Calonne explains.
Family business
More than forty years after its foundation, the French market leader in family fashion is present in 26 countries, with around 650 shops and 10,000 employees. The retailer launched in Belgium in 2010 as a pure player: a first physical shop only followed six years later. “We plan to open our fourteenth Belgian store soon, aiming to open a total of eight this year. That is a big expansion for us”, Calonne says. The managing director has been with the group for thirteen years and has headed the Belgian subsidiary for four years.
“Kiabi is a good place to work: it is a family-owned business with a human culture. We are convinced that if we take care of our employees, customers will experience that. We have been named a ‘Great Place to Work’ for the third consecutive year. Our founder is still active and often visits us in Belgium. We are in a start-up mode here, with a small team. We use Belgium as a test market for a lot of projects.”
Smaller stores
Kiabi offers fashion for the whole family, aiming to strike the right balance between price, quality and sustainability. “Baby and children’s clothing represents just under half of our turnover, and in Belgium even a bit more. We are also strong in large sizes and maternity clothes.” For basic pieces, the retailer maintains very competitive prices, similar to those of H&M, C&A or Primark. The more fashionable collections are priced slightly higher.
The chain opened its first Belgian stores in large shopping centres, locations with a lot of passage to familiarise customers with the brand. “Meanwhile, we are also active in the periphery, with shop-in-shops in hypermarkets, and in city centres, also with smaller formats like Kiabi Kids. In shopping centres, you do have the advantage of visibility, but profitability is a bit less. We have to monitor costs to maintain competitive prices. In Belgium, we have shops averaging 1,000 sqm, slightly smaller than the 1,500 to 2,000 sqm shops in France, Spain or Italy.”
Omnichannel franchise model
Kiabi now wants to expand in Belgium through franchise shops: the first will open in April at just under 1,000 sqm. “That will be a showcase to demonstrate our knowledge in that area to other entrepreneurs. In Wallonia and Brussels, we want to use franchise shops to target mainly secondary zones, with slightly smaller shops.”
About half of the group’s 650 shops are operated by franchisees. “It is a model we know well. In each country, we have a mix of branches and franchised shops. The advantage of our model is that the risk for the partners is very limited because we pay for the stock ourselves. The partner does not have to buy the stock.”
“Quite special about our franchise concept is that it is an omnichannel model: franchise partners receive a commission on online sales in their customer zone. This is done via customer card data: the online purchases of every customer with an account are allocated to the shop in their market area.”
Heading to Antwerp
The company does not move into the Dutch-speaking north unprepared: “We will approach it as a separate country and look for franchise partners who know the local market well. Consumer behaviour is different there anyway. We had a shop in Bruges once, but it was in a tourist pedestrian zone in the city centre, on the ground floor and basement in a building with a very high rent. That was a mistake. The turnover was okay, but it was not the best location to reach Flemish families.”
The expansion online has already happened and looks quite promising: almost a quarter of the company’s Belgian webshop’s sales already come from Flanders. “We already have a lot of Flemish customers, who know the brand. The webshop teaches us what catches on in Flanders and what does not. Now we feel ready, with Antwerp as our first target: that is where customers ask for us the most.”
Online reservations
The brand’s Belgian webshop is doing well, with online representing just over 30 % of sales. 35 % of online purchases are completed in-store. “We did start as a pure player in Belgium, but Kiabi cannot be a pure player: the experience is not complete without the physical store. We have an online reservation service: families can prepare their purchases online at home, we make the pieces easily available in the shop and they can come and try them on in the family fitting room. This way, customers avoid a stressful stage of the buying process anyway – especially with children. We also immediately lay out a size larger and a size smaller, so they are sure to find their size.”
Kiabi does no longer sell on external marketplaces: “We tested it, but it was not a success. It makes it harder for us to adjust our pricing. However, it did help make our brand better known to Dutch-speaking people. Now we are working on an internal marketplace, to complement our offer with products from local sellers. It is scheduled to open in Belgium in 2026.”
“De-season”
Despite its emphasis on “small prices”, Kiabi does not want to be an aggressive fast-fashion player. Sustainability is a priority: “This was not imposed top-down by the family, rather it came bottom-up. Our 10,000 employees understand that fast-fashion is an ecological disaster. 70 % of our emissions are linked to production. We are working on that: some 90 % of our products today already have a smaller environmental impact than before. We use organic raw materials, natural fibres, optimal cutting to avoid waste. We also limit accessories that cannot be recycled. For example, we are launching our first party collection with recycled sequins. In time, we want to stop using glitter.”
Scale and sustainability go hand in hand for Kiabi. The retailer is moving towards a higher proportion of permanent collections, instead of constantly changing seasonal collections. “If we create iconic, emblematic pieces with materials that are recognised to have less impact on the planet, we can both lower prices and accelerate our sustainable transformation.” In other words, Kiabi wants to “de-season” its range.
Belgium is a test market for circular initiatives. “We see that demand for second-hand is higher here. The limited size and complexity of the market makes it very suitable for small-scale testing. In our Westland Shopping shop (in Brussels, ed.), we are testing a workshop for repairing and customising clothes. We will also launch that customisation service online.”
Clothing with a deposit
Kiabi already collects used clothing and is considering a deposit system. “Belgians are used to deposits for other products. Our dream is that we can recover 100 % of the products we sell first-hand to reintegrate them into the chain. In almost all our shops, we already sell second-hand – and not just pieces from our own brand. We are also developing a platform where consumers can sell second-hand to each other online: we will open that in January 2025. Second-hand should become the entry-level range in the future, complemented by a more sustainable and expensive first-hand range. That way, we can drastically reduce our ecological footprint.”
And what about products that do eventually reach the end of their life cycle? “The idea is to develop ‘fibre farms’ in our production countries, where textile waste is processed into fibres that we can use to make new clothes. Barely 1 % of textiles worldwide are already recycled. For that, you have to design products from just one material, without accessories. We are already starting to collect garments to get customers used to this, and to avoid textiles automatically ending up in the dustbin.”
