BoConcept Strengthens Commitment to Franchisees at Global Conference

BoConcept recently celebrated another strong year of growth at the brand’s annual conference held in Herning, Denmark. Participants from around the globe including franchisees, visual merchandisers, store managers, sales associates and corporate staff members met to discuss the strategy that would help BoConcept more than double its existing franchisee footprint to reach 600 stores globally.

The largest key contributor to growth according to CEO Anton Van De Putte is the brand’s relationship with new and existing franchisees, an area he plans to nurture in 2018 in order to spark development.

“We want to open these stores with franchise partners because we believe that the franchise model is the best model,” said Van De Putte. “The franchisees that own their own store are fully in charge of how to operate the business. They know the local market, they know the local customers and they know how these people want to be addressed. I believe in that model and we as an organization believe in that model.”

By launching new store-level training programs and strengthening B2B sales, the brand believes they can drive sales and ultimately, help welcome new franchisees to the system. In fact, within the past two years alone, BoConcept has more than doubled B2B sales making that area approximately a third of overall sales.

“We are looking to hire on more B2B professionals who will help us continue to drive partnerships with corporations in target segments around the world,” said Chief Retail Officer Michael Linander. “We’re introducing a B2B manual, offering a new discount structure for those that buy in bulk, and implementing a global sales pipeline to get better insight into our overall performance. By driving customers to our B2B look-book on our website and launching designs that match current trends, we know we have an opportunity to have even greater results in this category in the future.”

BoConcept also talked about strengthening the relationship with its customer base with improved digital communications and the launch of an eCommerce platform, areas where competitors are still slowly cracking the surface.

“As we shift our focus from a product-focused brand to a customer-centric lifestyle brand, we’re creating an opportunity to generate growth by setting ourselves apart from competitors,” said BoConcept’s Marketing Director Steen Knigge. “The stronger that we become as a retailer, the better we will be able to serve our customers around the world. We look forward to seeing what we’re able to accomplish with this new vision.”

But even with this new customer-centric approach, BoConcept will continue to be an innovative leader with its unique, high-quality designs. The company introduced several new products and line extensions at the conference to provide customers with greater variety and will be releasing these slowly throughout the remainder of the year. One of those highlighted was an outdoor furniture collection designed by world-class designer Henrik Pedersen which launched nationwide earlier this year.