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~ Karhu ~

“Retail alone is not enough,” Van den Berg continues. “At currently focus on our largest, most profitable markets.
Karhu, we follow an omnichannel sales strategy. Brick- For us, that means our home market Finland, and other
and-mortar and online are both important channels. When large markets such as France, Italy, North America and the
comparing the two, we are more in control of our online Netherlands.”
channels. We provide a level of service to the retailers we
work with as well. For example, if a customer is looking for Facing a challenge
a shoe that is out of stock online, we provide them with Being available in many countries comes with challenges.
suggestions of nearby stores to check out. Our online and These challenges can be faced in various fields. The
offline channels are no competitors; they help each other.” platform, local duties and taxes, and customer service are all
areas in e-commerce that can bring challenges to an online
Being a cross-border entrepreneur seller. “For us, shipping costs and speed are the biggest
Providing value-adding services on both online and offline challenges, especially as we have set high standards we want
channels helps consumers worldwide to get and stay in to live up to,” admits Van den Berg. “We do not want to
touch with a brand. “As a cross-border entrepreneur, you dropship shoes for €160, knowing shipping takes fourteen
have to engage with your customers wherever they are. days. That does not make our customer or us happy.”
For Karhu, we have made this possible in many areas. This
is how our online and offline channels benefit from each At the same time, Karhu faces a challenge in the field of
other,” highlights Van den Berg. technology. “Our platform is a little outdated and – in the
end – an almost custom-created Magento shop. This stalls
“Of course, logistical possibilities, shipping costs and our growth, as you do not want to send loads of traffic to
warehousing facilities can hold you back. We receive a platform where your key conversion spots do not work
traffic from all over the world, but we do not have physical properly. We decided we wanted to switch our middleware,
representability everywhere. Being available online comes making our platform more flexible so we can easily connect
with possible issues, too. We always look for ways to solve sales, inventory, warehouse, and consumer channels. We have
them, and to be of better service to anyone, anywhere. One been looking for one key area to collect all consumer data.
thing we, for example, are working on is a Rest-of-World At this moment, we are getting back on track with this.”
website.
A part of these innovations also focuses on one of Karhu’s
Having such a website means we – online – can ship to any important standards: a high service level. The brand wants
location. An express service is likely used for some places, to be available to its customer: “preferably in the local
due to locations and shipping possibilities. This can result in language,” says Van den Berg. We decided to partner with
duties and taxes that have to be paid. As preparation is key, Salesupply to cover local customer service and customer
we are currently testing different models to see what way we support. Having customer service agents that fully
can best offer this to our customers. Our aim is to scale up understand the local language and can have a pleasant
country by country to enhance our network this way.” conversation with your customers is hugely beneficial for an
online business. Using local phone numbers and addresses
An international strategy benefits as well. We see that consumers return more to
Service is at the core of Karhu’s activities. “It is what makes our shop. Now, it is up to us to gather even more traffic to
our success,” explains Van den Berg. For the running shoe our local platforms. We are thinking about the way we are
brand, it is becoming more important when looking at going to set up our social media channels. Therefore, we
internationalisation. “In e-commerce, local shops do make must choose if we want to use localised brand pages or one
a difference. Not that long ago, we were only working with general page. Currently, we still have one central page for
a website in English. This way, the largest portion of our our online social outings.”
customers was able to order products on our global shop.
Recently, we started testing and changing this. In France, A solution could be to target, for example, Facebook,
we created a localised shop. Conversion rates in this period so audiences from different geographical locations view
went up significantly. The test paid off in such a way that specific posts or products. “In this field, one thing is clear to
we decided to continue rolling out this strategy for other us up to this moment: the options are numerous. It is likely
languages, weighing up the traffic and cost of investment we continue to communicate in English until a market is
needed to translate and implement.” big enough to consider another strategy. We first might
create different pages for certain outings; one focusing
The result is that Karhu currently works on translating and on performance shoes, and one focusing on our legend
localising all its sites, mainly focusing on navigation, key sneakers.”
content and the checkout, into a selected number of local
languages. On top of that, payment methods are localised, Changes in e-commerce
and local customer service is added. “It makes sense we When looking at the e-commerce market, it is still

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