After a strong 2022, Belgian fashion retailer LolaLiza wants to expand abroad through wholesale and marketplaces. Online is the ‘place to be’, CEO Joachim Rubin says, proudly highlighting the company’s great agility.
Strong results
2022 was an excellent year for LolaLiza: sales crossed the threshold of 100 million euros, with which the company improved on its pre-pandemic sales. “All our ratios are positive and definitely in line with or better than the market. Our company has little debt, has never been healthier and is brimming with ambition.”
Not that it has been easy: “At the end of last year, with energy prices doubling and raw material prices soaring, we had to put the brakes on and review our costs. We adjusted in a smart way, by quickly reducing our costs thanks to energy consumption measures and employee initiatives. We had to adjust our prices, but by less than inflation, so we could remain accessible to our customers. Our loyal customers are still there and we are always recruiting new ones.”
Agile response
LolaLiza’s ability to respond with such agility to the challenges in the market is due to the great strides it has made over the past five years, the CEO emphasises: “We have changed in all areas, from sourcing and logistics to reaching the customer. In times of crisis, you adapt more easily – because you have to. That is the advantage of a family-owned business: we can make decisions very quickly.”
The entire procurement and production process went up a gear, for example. It used to take up to three to six months, from design to delivery to shops. Today, fashion retailers no longer work with seasons, but with moments. “We work on trends, we see what works and we produce almost ‘on demand’. That is why we now produce about three quarters of our products in Europe: that way we can react faster. We have a team of top stylists, we do everything in-house.”
Back to the Netherlands
Since he took the helm at LolaLiza almost five years ago, Rubin first had to wind down things like the company’s Dutch stores. “First we have consolidated our Belgian business, made sure that part is super healthy. We hardly have any debt, we are not dependent on the banks. With our 85 physical shops, we cover Belgium and Luxembourg well, the six French shops are also growing.”
Now it is time to rebuild, step by step. The brand is returning to the Netherlands: no longer with its own shops, but with wholesale and on marketplaces. “The demand was there in the Netherlands, but the cost of building out a Dutch structure was too high. We have been back in Dutch multi-brand boutiques with the LolaLiza brand since two months. Germany may follow later.”
13 % online share
Online, LolaLiza now operates in 26 countries: the retailer manages its own e-commerce in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Moreover, it is increasingly active on marketplaces such as Zalando, Wehkamp, Bol.com, La Redoute and, since a few weeks, About You. “E-commerce is the future, it is the place to be. We had to adapt our systems: when you make the leap from an e-commerce share of 6 to 13 % of your business, you have to be agile. We have shown that we can do it.”
LolaLiza is now among the forerunners in the fashion industry in this respect, Rubin believes. “That 13 % is not the end, it is still he beginning. Our great success on those marketplaces shows that we have a place in a competitive environment. E-commerce is now setting the pace of growth, but physical shops remain important. That is where the customer relationship is much stronger. We have worked on our CRM to deepen that customer relationship digitally: we identify more than 80 % of our customers through the loyalty card or app.”
Size and price
What is LolaLiza’s strength as a brand in the difficult and possibly overcrowded fashion market? “There are indeed many players, and every day you see businesses having to close. However, LolaLiza has the agility, we feel what our customers need and respond to it. We are not a price fighter, but we are an accessible brand and we have the right weapons to meet customer expectations. Even in difficult times, customers remain loyal if you really are who you say you are.”
He refers to the availability of plus-sizes at the brand: “Two years ago, our size arc stopped at 46, now we are at size 50. That is inclusion, that is how we recruit new customers.” Pricing is also a matter of fine-tuning: “Our destination product is dresses, in which we want to be the strongest. So how can we offer the best product in terms of price-quality? You can use different fabrics, or a different design: a dress with an elasticated waist costs more than one that falls straight.”
The brand is also not averse to light-hearted marketing campaigns. For example, each year it stages a fashion show with ordinary people of all shapes and sizes rather than with professional models. Recently, the brand also opened Europe’s smallest showroom, in a beach cabin in Ostend.
Mountaineering
Finally, how important is sustainability to LolaLiza? “We are not a fast-fashion player, our model is ‘smart fashion’. The most important thing is finding the balance between what you produce, how much you produce and where you produce. Because we produce in Europe, we have less surplus. We use more recyclable fabrics: we want half of our clothing to be made of natural or recycled fabrics by 2025. We started doing that two years ago and are currently at about 35 %. We have also adapted our packaging for e-commerce: it is now made of recycled materials.”
“Despite the pressure, I also have a lot of fun here,” Rubin assures. “I am passionate, we have clear plans, we want to grow further. We are climbing a mountain, at our own pace. During the Covid-19 crisis, we endured a severe storm, so we had to take shelter. We experienced a smaller storm last year with the energy crisis. At times like those we pause, take time to decide and move on. We are a team that hangs together like mountain climbers on a climbing rope. We pull each other upwards. Belgium is our base camp, from there we set off for new markets.”
