Blue Fanana was founded in 2016 by two young people who were only 19 years old and had capital of 2,000 euros. A trip and a tattooed ethnic X were the beginning of her story. This clothing brand aims to empower new generations with a powerful slogan:We make noise, no clothes“.
With adventure and nature as the backdrop and Instagram as the tool, Blue Banana’s results didn’t take long to arrive. Today, his sales strategy has won the hearts of young people.
On the logistics side, Blue Banana has undergone major changes over the years. To find out more about this area, we conducted an interview Nacho Rivera and Juan Fernández-Estrada, founders and CEOs of Blue Banana Brand.
E-Commerce News (EcN): How did Blue Banana’s first semester end? What numbers do you expect to end 2023 with?
Nacho Rivera (NR): So far we are on budget for 2023 and are working to end the year with our planned revenue of more than 17 million euros.
EcN: When September comes, the BF and Christmas campaign alarms go off. What is your campaign strategy for this year?
Juan Fernández-Estrada (JFE): We are aware that these are key dates for achieving our financial goal and we are preparing campaigns that offer customers commercial but also emotional value. The idea is that they go beyond sales and align with our brand philosophy, which is based on inspiration.
NO: We don’t want to give too much away, the bar is set very high and our goal is to continue to surprise.
EcN: For concentrating on this logistics special; What is the current positioning of your company? Do you have warehouses that you operate yourself? Outsourced? Where are the camps?
JFE: Our positioning will always be to look for the option that offers the greatest benefit to the customer. We have outsourced the warehouse in Toledo from where we deliver all our orders to Spain and the world.
EcN: What volume of goods do you work with? How many shipments do you make per month?
NO: Online orders vary greatly from month to month. In fact, they can quadruple between the lowest and highest sales month. Therefore, it is crucial to have a well-developed operational capacity and the ability to easily adapt to the peaks and troughs of demand.
JFE: In addition, at Blue Banana we also manage all deliveries to keep our nine own stores (soon to be eleven), seven El Corte Inglés corners and an outlet stocked. This requires very careful and precise daily forecasting and updating work.
EcN: One of your flagships is sustainability. How do you perceive this commitment to logistics among suppliers and others?
NO: Outsourcing logistics makes it more complex than we would like. When choosing a partner, we pay particular attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a key value, not only at the operational level but in all other areas of the brand.
EcN: What challenges do you face in logistics in your company? What is your key aspect in this logistics process?
JFE: Excellence in all operations and customer service. We constantly monitor delivery times and measure satisfaction with the support received.. The team’s goal is to improve this data wherever possible. Peak periods such as Black Friday or Christmas are the most important dates for us to check whether the work is well done.
EcN: What return rates do you have? How do you manage returns?
NO: Our return rate is below that of the industry in Spain, which is why we remain calm. Additionally, we continually track metrics related to exchanges and returns to quickly identify if there are areas of the business that are not functioning as they should.
EcN: Are your online customers different from those who go to stores?
NO: There is everything: customers who only buy online, others who only do so in a physical store, and a significant percentage of hybrids: people who advise on the Internet and buy in store or vice versa. Their behavior depends largely on the socio-demographic profile, the season, the city, etc.
JFE: The best thing we can do to adapt to everyone is to provide the best possible service in each of the channels in which we work.
EcN: The after-sales part is another critical part. How do you solve logistics?
JFE: We have a very strong internal team that works with external partners to provide the best possible service.
NO: We know that there is always some scope to perfect everything, but every time we run satisfaction studies we receive positive feedback. Therefore, we can say that we are satisfied, but we do not relax and consider constant improvement as our goal.
EcN: What do you value most in transport companies? Which suppliers do you work with?
JFE: The word “Excellence” is used most frequently by our operations and customer service team and is therefore the most important value we look for in an external partner. We work with GLS and Sending for our online orders.
EcN: What expansion goals do you have in the medium and long term? What are your goals?
JFE: We are working to start selling in Mexico in the coming months. If all goes well, we hope other American countries can follow suit in 2024.
NO: At the same time, we continue to grow in Spain, both in our own stores (in September we opened our tenth store in Córdoba and in October the eleventh in Galicia) and in the corners of El Corte Inglés. And all this without neglecting the aspect that has the most to do with the brand. We are always looking for ways to improve so we can continue to inspire new generations to make their lives an adventure.