Building a Subscription E-Commerce Business from Switzerland: Samy Liechti, CEO of Blacksocks (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In Switzerland, how do you market for your kind of offering? How much could you grow in Switzerland?

Samy Liechti: In the socks segment, we now have 20% market share. With 20% market share, we can grow up to 30% to 35%, but we will never dominate the whole market. We started about two years ago to invest more marketing money outside our country. It seems to be working.

Sramana Mitra: Now that you’re investing outside of Switzerland, in terms of geographies, where are you putting your marketing dollars?

Samy Liechti: Germany, US, and Great Britain.

Sramana Mitra: When did you start that investment?

Samy Liechti: We started about three and a half years ago.

Sramana Mitra: How are these three markets developing for you?

Samy Liechti: US is growing at about 20% a year. It has become an important market. Germany is a little less at about 15% every year. In the UK, we have to readjust the marketing. It never really worked. Earlier, we tried France but we stopped because it’s a very difficult market. To start with, they are very traditional, and all the non-traditional people are not big spenders. We stopped all the investment in France.

Sramana Mitra: What about competition? In the US, for instance, is there any competition that you encounter?

Samy Liechti: Right now, there’s this huge trend for subscription services. When we started 15 years ago, there was nobody else. All over the world, there are 160 companies doing subscriptions as well. As you said, it’s all about marketing. Usually, copycats are not very inspired. They come and leave. Who’s doing pretty much the same thing in the US? They’re called Manpacks. They do subscription service for socks, underwear, and now they’re starting with cosmetics as well. I’m not sure if we’re going to do that. I think out of this 160 copycats, there’s still about 60 around. Everybody wants to have an advantage but providing a better quality of product and service and being more present is what it’s all about.

Sramana Mitra: Are you still doing only socks or do you also do underwear?

Samy Liechti: In 2007, we started with underwear. Then in 2012, we started with shirts. The reason is very simple. When you only have socks, there is only one path of growth. It was more customers. Whenever we have more products, we have more share of wallets. I can sell from my customer base, which is now about 200,000, more than just socks.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Building a Subscription E-Commerce Business from Switzerland: Samy Liechti, CEO of Blacksocks
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