Stockholm-based fashion brand Chiquelle moved their warehouse operations from Arlanda, Sweden to the Netherlands during last week, just right after Christmas. Chiquelle is one of the fastest growing fashion brands in the Nordics, a 6 times award winner and on the forefront of digital brands, being popular through its social media activities (over half a million followers) and through opening pop-up stores.
The warehouse move is part of accelerating global expansion with an increased focus on profitability and sustainability. In addition, lead times as well as delivery times for consumers, both to the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe will be improved. Over the past 18 months, Chiquelle has made a number of new investments including the launch of a new website, an AR-app, a new sportsbrand Chiquelle Activewear and successful pop-up stores throughout the entire country.
During the same period, the company made a successful transition to increase profitability compared to the previous year. In parallel to this, the fashion brand has been working in silent with a major transformational shift in order to prepare for the next phase of growth, as well as expanding its focus on more profitability and sustainability.
Chiquelle will be officially live from Tuesday 7 January and sending out the first orders from Almelo to their customers in the Nordics and the rest of Europe. The new warehouse is located in a strategic location at the center of Europe’s economic heart, the Scandinavian mediterranean corridor and the intersection of the North and Baltic sea. An operational team and representatives of the company will be present at the new site, from the moment it goes live and officially sends out the first orders.
”We have long had aggressive growth ambitions, but we realized the need to secure a profitable and sustainable development for the future as well. We expect to reduce our distribution costs by a third, while freeing up more time to focus on other core parts of the business, such as designs and productions. The aim is now to double the expansion to the rest of the EU, especially DACH and Benelux,” says Pouya Boland, co-founder and CEO of Chiquelle, who also has a background from the Netherlands.
“Collaboration towards this move started a few months ago with a focus on aligning operational systems and processes to assure smooth implementation of the total solution. To finalize preparations both Chiquelle and Bleckmann have been working hard during the past 10 days for the move in order to set-up the new warehouse, the products-move and the installation of the packing stations, teams and all logistic and operational processes. In less than 10 days we’ve been able to move the warehouse from Sweden to the Netherlands, implement the new way of working, move all products and being live already on the 7th of January. Our teams have literally been working 24/7 in order to reach the deadlines. It has been a massive operation, but we succeeded major problems.”
