With a successful webshop, over 1200 resellers worldwide and a physical store in the popular 9 Streets in Amsterdam, Pig & Hen is by no means a small player. Yet the bracelet brand is only at the beginning of its global expansion.
The fact that Pig & Hen would be active in 25 countries within a few years was not the intention during the launch at the end of 2013. But when dozens of shop orders came in during the first fashion trade fair, the realisation came that the label has the necessary potential.
And all this while the bracelets were originally intended for personal use. As a sailor, one of the founders sometimes made bracelets from ship’s rope. His good friend – and now a partner – worked in fashion and saw it as an interesting business model.
Foreign countries account for the lion’s share of turnover
Since its foundation, the company has grown at least double-digit annually. A great achievement, but Stefan – who was hired in April 2018 to strengthen the international e-commerce strategy – knew there was much more to it. He wanted to get the most out of the company and therefore entered into a partnership with AdResults.
An important reason for this is that AdResults can be used not only in the Netherlands, but also abroad. That’s where Pig & Hen had a lot to gain in recent years. Until a year ago, for example, the company even worked from a .nl domain, while English was used as the working language and some sixty percent of the turnover came from abroad.
“The internal processes are much simpler when you work from one website and only need to communicate with your customers in one language. But from a commercial point of view, you’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities,” says Stefan, who therefore immediately started locating the nine most important markets. “The fact that it was an extensive process is an understatement. In addition to all of the site’s translations, customer service also had to be expanded due to multilingualism”.
And not only was the webshop – which later switched from WooCommerce to Magento 2 – optimised, but the marketing campaigns were also examined in detail together with AdResults. “I have known the founders for years and have never been disappointed by them.”
‘Conversion increased by 15 percent’
Stefan himself managed to take the ROI to a higher level, but according to him the real win came when AdResults was hooked up at the beginning of 2019. “I score a seven on all disciplines, but if you want to excel that’s not enough. AdResults is so pragmatic that we can use our full potential. Over the past six months, for example, conversion has increased by fifteen percent and our online turnover has doubled”.
Although physical retail is still important to Pig & Hen, the webshop is now well on its way to becoming the leading channel. “In terms of localization, the online channel represented less than thirty percent of the turnover, but now it is almost fifty percent. This direct sales to the consumer works very well, not only because of the better margins, but also because the customer feedback now comes first-hand. “We are gathering significantly more customer data, which will enable us to target social media campaigns much better.
‘With AdResults, we can use our full potential.’
For the six focus markets – the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Great Britain and America – Pig & Hen mainly uses lookalike campaigns. In addition to the Google Ads, which are entirely managed by AdResults, the traffic from social media has also increased considerably. “Since we started showing Facebook and Instagram ads to a target group that has a lot in common with current customers, online sales in America have increased sixfold. The fact that the number of retailers in these markets has doubled in the same period also helps, of course, as this presence creates more trust among (potential) customers. “As soon as we connect physical retailers, we see this immediately in the online sales.
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