Interview Niek Koedam from Nolson

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Nicolaas Koedam. I am 26 years old and the founder of Nolson. The idea for Nolson originated in 2015, and I officially started in 2016. The concept arose from my own needs. I found it challenging to find a good shirt. I was attending the New Business School, where we dressed fairly formally. Zara and H&M offer affordable shirts, but the quality and fit weren’t great. I used to buy my shirts in Milan—high quality, but expensive. In the Netherlands, you end up with brands like Suitsupply, Oger, and other higher-end labels.

For students and young professionals, a shirt priced around €100 is quite expensive. That’s where the idea for Nolson came from: a shirt you can wear casually or formally, with high quality and a reasonable price.
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What are your biggest challenges when it comes to growth?

There are a few challenges in my business.
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The Coronavirus as a Challenge

At the time of this interview, the coronavirus was already a major issue in China, but it wasn’t yet a pressing problem in the Netherlands. We partly manufacture our products in China. The country is currently at a standstill, and there’s not much you can do about that. What we can do is maintain daily contact with our suppliers in China. I FaceTime daily with my contact person to see if they are working in the factory or from home. That serves as an indicator of how serious the issue is. So far, things seem to be going well, but I’m keeping a close watch.

At the moment, I’m not actively looking for new suppliers. You could look for a new supplier in Portugal, but the coronavirus is now in Europe as well. So, that doesn’t make much sense. I believe that China is better equipped to handle the situation. Here, nobody is wearing face masks, but in China, they are taking serious measures. For now, I’m sticking with my production in China.
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Retail or Online Sales

A second challenge that’s always present in retail is: do you focus on online growth or on expanding physical stores? This is a recurring question. You can grow faster online than through physical retail. However, customers also expect service from us, and we take that very seriously.

For example, we’ve recently seen increased traffic to our online store from the southern part of the Netherlands. Our store in Amsterdam is too far for customers from Limburg to visit, resulting in more returns from that region. If you had strategically located stores, you could reduce the number of returns from your online store. This is something we consider.
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Acquiring New Customers for the Online Store

Word of mouth is an important source of new customers. A housemate wears a nice shirt and talks about it. We hear that a lot in the store, and that’s fantastic.

A second source of new customers is social media advertising. We’ve looked at the conversion paths to see how people become customers. Most of them come through social media. When we increase our ad spend, sales also go up. So, the ratio between marketing costs and revenue is still favorable for us.
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International Expansion of Nolson Online

The third growth challenge is expanding into other countries. We mainly sell in the Netherlands, as returns in other countries are a challenge. You can easily run campaigns in Germany or France, but shipping costs are high, so offering free returns in those countries isn’t feasible. That could lead to bad reviews, which you want to avoid. If you’re expanding abroad, I believe you need to do it right from the start.

Another challenge is language. Most people speak English, but particularly the French and Germans prefer to be addressed in their native language. That means you have to translate all the text on your website and offer customer service in those languages as well—a considerable effort.

A third challenge is the average body shape and the fit of our shirts. Germans generally have a similar build to the Dutch, so the return rate for Germany would be similar to that of the Netherlands. However, in other countries, men have a different average build, which could result in more returns.

These are considerations to keep in mind, in my opinion. Since we take our service seriously, I’d want to open a store in Germany as support for our online operations. A store gives credibility, and you can offer free returns in Germany.
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Can you share how you set up your marketing funnels?

In the past, I built my marketing campaigns myself. We used to take a broad approach, and that worked well because our pricing is good, and we offer free shipping and returns.

In the past, you could target friends of friends on Facebook, which worked really well. However, targeting friends of friends no longer works. You want to build a larger reach.
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Three-Step Facebook Funnels

Now we have a specific approach and are really building funnels in our paid marketing.

1. Branding Video: We run a paid ad with a branding video.
2. Retargeting: We then retarget people who engaged with the video, directing them to the branding page on our website. We send Dutch people to our English-language pages to give our brand an international feel. These campaigns run in the Netherlands.
3. Conversion Campaign: The final step is the conversion campaign. This campaign is entirely in Dutch because it’s locally focused on conversions.
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Black Friday Funnel

We also ran a cool campaign for Black Friday.

We sent out calendar invites to add our Black Friday event to your agenda. We did this in the period leading up to Black Friday, so we wouldn’t have to compete on the day itself.

Through our newsletter, we asked people if they wanted to hear about the Black Friday sale. They were then directed to a landing page where they could download a calendar invite for their phone or computer.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t measure the calendar downloads, so we don’t have the results. However, the Black Friday campaign was very successful. I’m generally satisfied with Black Friday campaigns—they work well for sales. It was a unique campaign because we rarely offer discounts. We simply can’t afford it in terms of margin, and it doesn’t fit our strategy. For one day, it’s good for sales, but I have mixed feelings about Black Friday. You have to participate somehow; otherwise, people will shop elsewhere.
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Do you notice existing channels becoming saturated? Are there opportunities in new marketing channels?

Our Facebook and Instagram campaigns are performing quite well, so I haven’t noticed saturation yet. Last month, our cost per conversion increased, but we optimized, and when we allocate more budget, we get more transactions.

For the future, the question of saturation definitely remains relevant.

Are the Facebook timeline and Instagram Stories becoming too saturated?
In the past, users would see an ad every 10 stories. Now, it’s every 2 stories. People are getting tired of it, and I feel it’s becoming less effective.

We’re also seeing shifts on Facebook itself. In the past, everyone who liked your page would see your posts. That’s no longer the case. We used to get 150 likes on organic posts; now, we get at most 30 to 60 likes. This isn’t because of our engagement but rather because fewer people see it in their timeline. The reach is much smaller.

It’s a logical step for Facebook: the more ads they show, the less organic content they can place. However, I believe there should be a balance. My generation is fed up with Facebook—it’s become one big marketing funnel rather than a place to see fun updates from friends. I feel that balance is already lost.

I’m curious to see what the next platform will be. We’re looking into TikTok and Snapchat, but we haven’t invested in them yet. Our target audience isn’t fully there yet. None of my friends have said, “You have to check out this TikTok.” Engagement on TikTok is currently much higher, but my colleague Janne, who is a bit younger than I am, uses different channels. It really varies by age group. So, I do see potential opportunities there for the future.
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How do you handle competition?

We compete based on our products. We make better shirts, both in fit and quality. We want to offer our shirts at a price that our competitors can’t match. It’s an “American Gangster” strategy: top-quality shirts for a much lower price.

Online, we see some competition on social media. Profuomo, for example, is running campaigns. Their target audience (and their team, I assume) is older than I am. They face the same issue with Facebook and Instagram that I do with TikTok. I’m familiar with Facebook and Instagram, so we go all-in there. They’re only testing, and that approach doesn’t work.

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How big is your team, and how do you manage it?

There are just the two of us.

Janne has been with us from the beginning. He started as an intern and now works at Nolson. He takes on a lot and is very proactive, which is great for me. During quiet months, we focus on growth, such as planning an event for our 4-year anniversary. During busy periods, we know exactly what needs to be done.

With a good team, you don’t have to be big. Either Janne or I are in the store. We alternate shifts. Most things happen online, and that’s easy to combine with the store. We handle shipping from the store, so it’s straightforward.

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What are your growth goals for 2020?

For 2020, we aim to sell over 11,000 shirts. In addition, we have goals that aren’t directly related to revenue. For example, we want to expand our collection with more types of shirts and more colors. We also want to significantly increase our brand awareness in 2020. I want as many people in the target group as possible to know about us and have seen one of our shirts “in real life,” whether through a housemate, colleague, or friend.
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What new trends do you see, and are you planning to do anything with them? Or where do you see opportunities for e-commerce in 2020?

It’s never been easier to start your own business. Setting up a webshop, or at least the front end, has become much simpler.

As a consumer, I still frequently come across webshops that disregard legal matters like privacy. That’s unacceptable. For this reason, consumers sometimes distrust webshops. You think you’re buying from a legitimate store, but then your order never arrives because it’s just a front-end setup, and the back-end isn’t properly managed.

Where new webshops often go wrong is in failing to professionalize the backend operations. I advise starting entrepreneurs to take these matters seriously. It may take longer, but it’s essential for building customer trust.

Another trend is the bankruptcy of so many physical retail stores. I believe it should be a combination of online and offline. Ronald Kahn of Coolcat failed because he didn’t engage in e-commerce. But I believe it should be a mix: you still want to try on and feel a shirt in person. A physical location helps with that.

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What tools do you use?

We use WooCommerce for our webshop backend. We also use Mailchimp as our email provider. Are you looking for a Mailchimp alternative?

For our abandoned shopping carts, we use the plugin Commerce Monitor. This tool also sends invoices and serves as a pre-feedback tool. After an order, customers receive a message from us asking, “How did the delivery process go?” If something isn’t right, we can identify the issue early and resolve it. Customers know they can reach us if there’s a problem. Good communication, even when there’s an issue, helps prevent bad reviews. We also use this tool to monitor Customer Lifetime Value and retention. For our webshop data, we use Google Analytics.

In the store, we use iSettle as our payment provider. It used to be just for payments, but now it’s also a data platform that provides insights about your store’s transactions. It’s pretty handy for extracting insights.

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To what extent do you use data?

We use a lot of data: almost all of our decisions are based on data. For example, we run our ads based on data: which colors sell best? We use that information in our ads. Occasionally, there’s a sponsorship for a student lustrum or something similar, which is based on gut feeling.

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Anything else you’d like to add?

We’ll be launching a polo shirt soon, which will be great for the summer. And we’re almost celebrating our 4-year anniversary, which we’re planning to celebrate. If you’d like to know more, sign up for the Nolson newsletter.