Danish Market Overview

By Rita & Malicia Dabrowicz

Table of content
Introduction to Danish market Targets Competitors retail (2 pages) Competitors design How to Increase Visibility on The Danish market: Internet How to Increase Visibility on The Danish market: Professional links Exemplary campaigns on Twitter and blogs Gaining customer trust Increasing customer interest Ethics in the business

Introduction to Danish market

The Danish fashion market is very competitive, there are many players (international and national) and all of them sell their products online and in a traditional way (boutiques),
The economical crisis has stopped the market growth (in 2010, the fashion market was very stable), customers are not spending as much money on clothes as two or three years ago, Danish customers are very IT savvy: they know how to shop online, how to look for bargains; they are not very loyal and will always look for better offers, Danes are very fashion orientated and proud of their native designers and clothes makers. Danish brands are on the raise and are being introduced in overseas stores, Culture, art, social equality and ecology are extremely important to Danish citizens. Fashion companies are involved in many charity and ecological projects, helping to create jobs in developing countries or protecting the environment, Although majority of Danes speak and understand English, they are very attached to their own language and they prefer to read the news and browse websites written in Danish, Danish customers are mostly using Google when looking for online clothing and bargains.

Targets
Men and women between the age of 18 to 45, Women with kids or those shopping for their families, College educated (graduates and professionals) - 70% of Danish people have higher education, Interested in fashion, music and art, Tech savvy, with good Internet skills and time to look for a bargain, Ecologically aware, Sport playing, Support charities and social equality, Proud to be Danish with an interest in national products and brands, Come from medium city

COMPETITORS - Retail
BESTSELLER - http://www.bestseller.com Brands: Jack and Jones, Junarose, Mamalicious, Name IT, OCI Object Collectors Item, Only, Outfitters Nation, Pieces, Selected, Vero Moda and Villa Clothes. Net turnover: EUR 2,446 million (5% increase) Result before tax: EUR 161 million (48% decrease) Total equity: EUR 994 million Number of employees: More than 15,000 (hereof 3,300 in Denmark) Number of chain stores: More than 3,000 (hereof 300 in Denmark) Markets: Most of Europe, the Middle East, Canada, India and globally via e-commerce. More than 3,000 chain stores across 38 markets worldwide Sold in approx. 12,000 multi-brand and department stores in 53 markets worldwide BTX GROUP - http://www.btx-group.com Brands: Brandtex, Jensen, Imitz, Ciso and Signature. previously called Brandtex, celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2010. Today, the company has approximately 175 employees and a turnover around 17,6 millions.

DK COMPANY - www.dkcompany.com DK has 17 brands including Kaffe, Creamie, Gestuz, Occupied, Studio, Karen by Simonsen and Kn & Mn. In 2012, they have bought several brands from BTX group including b.Young, Fransa, Ichi, FQ1924, Dranella and Gestuz. They also bought Retail Norway division with approx. 150 shops. All brands have turnover of DKK 1.4 billion and approx. 450 employees. More information can be found here: http://www.dkcompany.com/Press/Pressrelease.aspx?PID=276&Action=1&NewsId=27 Most of their brands have separate websites and online shops like: http://www.kaffe-clothing.com/
HUMMEL INTERNATIONAL Sport & Leisure www.hummel.net. Hummel produces sport clothing, accessories and footwear. They have their official stores in 15 European countries and export to nearly 40 countries around the globe. The company has very strong presence online and sponsors more than 30 international and national teams. More information can be found here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0DtbfTfJsE4YlJ4UXdvNV80RnM/edit?usp=drive_web

COMPETITORS Retail (cont)

IC COMPANY - http://www.iccompanys.com IC Companys A/S has been formed in 2001 by the merger of Carli Gry International A/S and InWear Group A/S. Brands: Tiger of Sweden, By Malene Birger, Peak Performance, Designers Remix, InWear, Matinique, Part Two, Saint Tropez and Soaked in Luxury. Revenue of 2012: EUR 513 millions Employees: 2,200 Stores: 500 retail and franchise stores, through e-commerce and via more than 10,000 distributors in more than 40 countries SHOE-D-VISION Amba - http://www.shoe-d-vision.com Brands: Skoringen and Zjoos The company has nearly 300 stores in Denmark and Norway. They specialize in shoes for all occasion from sport, everyday to corporate and evening shoes for women, men and children. They have 160 boutiques for Skoringen brand and 60 for the Zjoos brand, the rest is being marketed under Shoe-d-vision. Employees: 1500 Revenue: 200 millions EUR NELLY - www.nelly.com Nelly is one of the most popular Scandinavian online stores. They have nearly 750-800 brands and advertised themselves as having 1 million loyal customers. They target a group of young people between 18 and 35 years of age. Brands: Nelly Trend and Nelly Shoes. (own brands) and among others: Converse, Elise Ryan, Ida Sjstedt, Whyred, Primeboots, OnePiece, Ralph Lauren and Cheap Monday. Products: shoes, clothing, dresses, party dresses, Underwear, swimwear, sports fashion, maternity and more. SMARTGIRL/SMARTGUY www.smartgirl.dk Smartgirl is known outside of Scandinavia as Fashionpit. The company has been founded in 2004 and now has more than 200 full time employees and online stores in 18 different languages including websites for Polish and UK customers. Brands: more than 150 brands including Pepe Jeans, Hugo Boss, Puma, Stella McCartney, Marc Jacobs and many others. They sell shoes, ready to wear collections, sport apparel, accessories, lingerie and cosmetics. Others worth mentioning include: H&M, Esprit DK, Adidas DK, Nike DK, http://www.magasin.dk and www.trendsales.dk

Competitors - Designer
http://www.bonaparte.dk Established in Denmark in 1987, BONA PARTE has online stores for all Scandinavian countries, UK, Switzerland Holland and Germany. They have 60 millions of revenue and target mostly business minded women between the age of 20 to 45. They are subsidiary of Puccini Group. www.miinto.com A very successful start-up by Mike Radoor and Konrad Kierklo, MIINTO took the Danish fashion world by storm. Founded in 2009, the company is present in 5 countries and has 15.000 brands in their catalogue. Their online sales went up 388% between 2011 and 2012. Surprisingly the company withdrew their presence from UK and Irish market in April 2013. http://madsnorgaard.dk MADS NRGAARD designer clothes are available in more than 400 online and traditional stores in 20 different countries, including Japan, Europe and America. His clothes are very popular among successful men and women between 25 and 50. Mads is the co-founder of Danish Fashion Institute. www.rutzou.com - RTZOU by Susanne Rtzou is extremely popular indie brand among Danish designers. The company has offices in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, France, Spain and Greece. In addition, the clothes are sold in USA, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Russia and Japan. Today the company has reached a two digit million turnover. Other designers worth mentioning are: Baum und Pferdgarten, Ivan Grundahl, www.noir.dk (brand by Peter Ingerwersen), www.katvig.dk/ (children clothing) and http://bruunsbazaar.dk,

http://www.muntheplussimonsen.com Established in 1994, MUNTHER PLUS SIMONSEN is a family business sells original designs by Naja Munthe and Karen Simonsen. The company hires 40 people and sells clothes in 150 countries thanks to their website store. They are very popular among women about 2545 years of age.
http://www.day.dk - DAY BIRGER ET MIKKELSEN is creation of popular designer Keld Mikkelsen. The company opened its door is 1999 and since then is available in over 25 countries and in nearly 1000 online and traditional boutiques. The company has three brands: Day, 2nd Day and Day Home. Day is a subsidiary of www.Net-a-porter.com http://www.bymalenebirger.com/ - MALENE BIRGER is another famous Danish designer, former partner of Keld Mikkelsen. Her online store is available in 14 countries and she targets young, professional females between 20 and 40 years old. Companys annual revenue is estimated at 30 million Euros.

How to Increase Visibility on Danish market: Internet

New website, Twitter and Facebook page written entirely in Danish, Accounts on Pinterest, Youtube (people could view TV commercials), Google +, Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram and others, allowing people to add us to friends and re-post the messages, post their own pictures wearing the clothes they bough etc, Accounts on popular Scandinavian Social network pages like http://www.biip.no, Regular competitions on social websites: public voting, free vouchers, free delivery codes, funky fun (write a poem to your favourite pair of shoes, design your own dress, send us a picture of your stylization etc.), AMA sessions (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit or any fashion related website - public chats with quests, experts and company representatives, beauty tips, how to create extraordinary outfit using clothes from our store, Companys blog (how the company works from the inside) in Danish and English - Wordpress or Blogger, Digital catalogue available on Scribd.com and Issuu.com for quick and easy download for the customers, Banner campaigns on the most popular online Danish news magazines and newspapers. A long list of websites can be found here: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/denmark.htm,

Commercials on popular celebrity magazine websites like http://www.seoghoer.dk/,

Sponsored articles and commercials (online and printed) in popular women and sport magazines. Links can be found here: http://www.allyoucanread.com/denmark-magazines/.

How to Increase Visibility on Danish market: Professional links

Establishing co-operation with Dansk Fashion and Textile (trade association for Danish textile and clothing companies): www.dmogt.dk/en/Topmenu/welcome.aspx, Establishing links with Danish Chamber of Commerce (www.danskerhverv.dk/) and Danish Fashion Institute (http://danishfashioninstitute.ch/), Exhibiting our brands at Danish Fashion shows like CPH Vision (www.cphvision.dk), Copenhagen International Fashion Fair (http://ciff.dk) and Kreative Dage (http://www.kreativedage.dk), Campaigns on LinkedIn, job adverts, tips from HR, recruitment news for candidates, joining professional groups dedicated to fashion, online shops, e-commerce (for example Fashion Retailers or Fashion Group International). We can also monitor our competitors and their key people (CEO, HR, marketing executives), Professional co-operation with the biggest Danish fashion bloggers. We could provide clothing for their photo shoots or freebies in exchange for reviews, sponsor competitions with gift vouchers, promote their blogs in exchange for sponsored articles. List of popular blogs can be found here: http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blogs/1/0/dk Establishing co-operation with B2B International and Danish companies like http://www.fibre2fashion.com

Exemplary campaigns on Twitter and blogs

Twitter friends and retweets from:
https://twitter.com/CIFF_DK - Copenhagen International Fashion Fair https://twitter.com/fibre2fashion - Fibre 2 Fashion B2B textile portal https://twitter.com/GoVisitDenmark - Visit Denmark portal https://twitter.com/scandinavtoday - All things Scandinavia blog https://twitter.com/VisitCopenhagen - Visit Copenhagen portal https://twitter.com/denmarkdotdk - Denmark official twitter page https://twitter.com/CopenhagenDaily - Daily tweets from Capital https://twitter.com/DAFI_dk - Danish Fashion Institute https://twitter.com/denmarked Denmark.Net portal https://twitter.com/cphpost - Copenhagen Post - only English newspaper

Twitter hashtages: #TrendSetters #FashionFact #BloggingDenmark #DanishDesign #DanishFashion #DannishApparel #Apparel #DenmarkB2B #Denmark

Blogs:
http://stellamagblog.blogspot.com/ - Stella Magazie http://www.stellamag.net/ http://scandinavtoday.blogspot.com - Cultural and Culinary blog about Scandinavia http://danskmagazine.com - Dansk Magazine http://fashionforum.dk/ - Fashion Forum

Gaining customer trust

Become members of Nord Fair (http://nord-fair.dk), Danish Chamber of Commerce, Dansk Fashion and Textile and other recognized authorities on Danish Market, Establish close links with Danish designers and introduce their brands to the store,

Become a member of Trusted Shops -http://www.trustedshops.dk or www.trustedshops.eu,

Receive International Standard Certification for Online Shops (CIW and Webshop CIWB) - www.iscow.org, Encourage our clients to give us positive feedback on websites like Epinions.com or BizRate and monitor the reviews for any bad publicity. If negative comments would be posted, immediately contact the client and try to resolve the issue (within 24 hour for example is possible), Receive third partys certifications like http://www.bbb.org/us/bbb-online-business/ or http://www.truste.com/, Become a Google SEO/SEM, Adwords partner and place the certification on website, Enrol in Googles Trusted Store campaign: http://www.google.com/trustedstores/merchants/successstories.html, Receive certification from partners or manufactures of IT security programs we use to secure the online transactions, for example from companies like: http://www.symantec.com/verisign/ssl-certificates or http://www.thawte.com Allow users to use several payment options like PayPal, VISA, Mastercard, American Express or www.Skrill.com - receive certifications from these companies as well

Increasing customers interest

1. Strong Affiliate program:

Point to Point campaign (points awarded to customer upon registration, for every purchase or bringing new customers for the business), Points can be exchanged for vouchers, clothes and accessories, given to charity or given as a gift to other people (friends, family members), Badges for clients (newbie, collector, star etc) awarded to people for various tasks like writing reviews on Facebook, blog mentions, reviews on third party websites, Achievements (for example collect all items from a series), Profiles - clients can write a short bio, add a picture. All achievements, badges and points collected would be display there for other people to see.

2. Competitions: Competitions: find a lost item in the store a pair of trousers in dress section. Send us a screenshot to be awarded (first person to do that wins), Write a rhyming poem about our newest stock to win a desired item. Poems will be used in campaign and posted on Facebook, Create a campaign using pictures from our lookbook or catalogue, Send us picture of your stylization and win fan of the week title Different competitions for every page (smaller ones) or multiplatform ones that require people to gather information from all sources (Investigations with clue gathering). 3.Constant updates on all platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr, mobile phones etc. Creation of mobile phone games etc. 4.Replying to complain within 24-48 hours and keeping the word. If the complain has not been answered by that time award the people for the inconvenience or having to wait.

5. Fair approach to clients and giving them honest information.

Ethics in the business

Their initiatives include:
Danish companies are heavily involved in charity and support of justice in the world. Small businesses usually donate to local charities while medium and big companies (especially in the fashion industry) are trying to make a change in the developing countries. Each company has a section on their website dedicated to charity and interacts with their customers, giving them ideas how to protect the environment or how to re-use the goods.
Providing customers with information how and where the clothes have been made, Working with Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA program) to create jobs, offer honest payment to workers and prevent children exploitation - http://um.dk/en/danidaen/activities/business/,

Support of http://www.cleanclothes.org,
Asking their customers to buy clothes from the store and they will be donated to families who has lost everything (items are especially reduced to encourage clients to buy), Special seasonal sales with % of income going to charities chosen by customers, End of lines and unclaimed items donated to charity shops or Clothes libraries like http://resecond.com/

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