SUCCESS STORY: Petrol Industries

SUCCESS STORY: Petrol Industries

Company overview

Petrol Industries is a fashion label founded in the Netherlands in 1989 by Pedro van Zon. It offers a range of quality yet affordable staples in the casual mid-segment menswear market.

Petrol got its start with belts, and nowadays carries a wide assortment of reliable wardrobe classics from jackets, pants, shirts and t-shirts, to loungewear, underwear and socks.

True to Pedro’s love of American car culture and fashion, the brand has a distinct motor-centric aesthetic; yet it strikes a skillful balance between catering to the look and feel of a motor-loving culture, while looking towards an emission-free future. Their Road to a Cleaner Future collection is manufactured with sustainable fabrics including BCI Cotton and recycled materials. In the brand's own words, “Not using any petrol, only wearing it.”

Petrol is available in over 20 countries and has a particularly strong presence in Benelux, the DACH region, France, Spain, and Italy.

The situation

Petrol Industries has a substantial wholesale reach with 3000 POS, so the brand turned to a DTC strategy to fuel further growth. Petrol launched its webshop in 2015, before expanding to marketplaces in 2021.

As an international affordable brand, entry price points are crucial for Petrol’s audience. Scaling efficiently on marketplaces while ensuring every sale remained profitable posed a big challenge. Petrol’s initial strategy was to delist every product with a price point below €21, until the idea of bundling products came in. This is when the brand turned to ChannelEngine for help.

The solution

Daniel Gonzalez Docal, Digital Director at Petrol, explains how the brand uses our product bundle feature:

Product bundling allows us to “digitally pack” low-priced items together, so we can still offer our audience a great deal without damaging our order economics. With the help of ChannelEngine, we created packs in our dashboard that we think are commercially relevant for the consumer, but in our warehouse, we keep them separately (single-stocked). We basically extend our assortment with these digital bundles. The consumer gets a bargain. We get a higher order, so a true win-win.”

ChannelEngine worked closely with Petrol on creating their first bundles. Daniel says: “The support level has been great. It was truly a shared collaboration to fix the bundles and get them online with the right product info. We started with 1 or 2 packages to test the functionality and have kept going since.”

The results

Petrol saw spectacular results with their bundles in 2022. Daniel shared that during Cyber Week, they quadrupled (x4!) their revenue vs. the previous year.

They have over 120 product bundles online, covering most of their highest sellers at affordable price points. Their best-selling bundle sold over 23.000 pieces in Europe, beating total sales of single unbundled items by 50%.

Daniel says: “Year to date, we are almost doubling vs. last year (in very tough market conditions). We truly believe in growing our bundles further. Imagine the potential if we expand the range and implement this across more marketplaces.”

Future steps

Petrol is already working on expanding their presence in Poland, Spain, and France.

“Currently, we sell on Zalando, Bol.com, Amazon, Inno & Yoox. We are ready to onboard the next 6 pending marketplaces, so we can offer our strong quality and affordable products to a wider audience interested in our motor-centric look.”

Daniel confirms marketplaces and product bundles are the cornerstone of their plans for future growth: “After we increase visibility on the platforms, we’re expecting to triple the number of bundles. Digital will become the strategic growth pillar of the company, and our partnership with ChannelEngine and marketplaces will surely intensify.”

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