Newsletter #39: Shopify Milestones, Wethenew, and in-store experiences

Hi there,

I hope you're feeling good and had a nice Easter break. For mine, I discovered the Swiss chocolatier Läderach. I had a tablet of dark chocolate filled with orange and almonds. It was delicious!

In today’s edition, we’re discussing Shopify Milestones, Wethenew, and in-store experiences.

Let's dive in.

Work

If you’re following Shopify merchants on social media, you might have come across some posts where they were sharing that they received a very special gift from Shopify.

This gift is a Shopify Milestone. It’s a physical trophy celebrating one of three major milestones: reaching 10K, 100K, or 1M lifetime orders on their Shopify store.

I find these trophies very interesting for two reasons.

First, Shopify Milestones are a wonderful gesture of appreciation of the hard work that merchants put in every day to develop their brands.

It’s Shopify’s way of telling merchants “We see you, and what you’re accomplishing is fantastic”. Receiving encouragement from a platform as big as Shopify is a heartwarming attention that doesn’t go unnoticed.

Second, Shopify Milestones are a very smart marketing tactic.

What is the first thing you do when you receive your trophy? That’s right: you share it on social media. Often, your loved ones also share it to express how proud they are of you.

Very quickly, social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter are filled with these pictures of Shopify Milestones.

And what might people think when they see those? “Wow that’s so cool! I’d love to create my own Shopify store so that I can receive some trophies as well!”. These Milestones are a great way to inspire people to start on Shopify.

On my quest to learn about Shopify Milestones, I stumbled upon a one-page website dedicated to them. What a little gem! It has a nice spatial ambiance and is filled with beautiful 3D animations. Discover this website here.

Inspire

This week, I was having lunch (brown pasta with a spicy tomato sauce and a mountain of parmesan - that’s the life) listening to a French podcast called La Chapelle.

The host, Hugo Bentz, was interviewing Michael Holzmann, co-founder of Wethenew, one of the biggest Shopify merchants in France who made an annual revenue of 100M€ in 2022.

It was super inspiring to discover how this huge adventure started, back in 2018.

Michael and his co-founder David have been passionate about sneakers since they were teenagers. Initially, they started buying and reselling them, with the only goal of using the profit to purchase their own dream sneakers.

Their process was simple: they used to take orders in manually, then source the requested sneakers through their network, and deliver them to the customers.

When this business got some traction, they decided to create an online store for it, on Shopify (nice choice).

In 2018, they bought a Shopify theme for 300€ and used it for three years. According to Michael, these were the best invested 300€ in the history of the company. I believe him!

At first, they were only listing the sneakers that they had in stock. For example the Nike Air Force 1 in sizes 41 and 44. For the other sizes, customers would have to contact them. Then they would hunt for this precise size, until they found it and delivered it to the customer.

Soon, Michael and David realized that in most cases they were able to find the requested sizes in under 48 hours. So they took their Shopify store to a crazy next step: they listed all sneakers sizes as available. If a size was ordered whilst it was in reality unavailable, then they would do their best to find it and deliver it to the customer. Can you imagine the level of operational stress? It was one thing to do that when they were just starting out, but now with an online store it was a new level. Especially during times like Black Friday or Christmas… This “fake it until you make it” technique was risky but worked like a charm!

After that, the next step was to turn Wethenew into a real marketplace, where supply directly met demand. Sellers were selling directly to buyers, after Wethenew had authenticated the sneakers to make sure they were authentic.

Here are some key numbers about Wethenew:

• Year 2018: 1M€ in annual revenue, in less than a year (4 months exactly).

• One of their first acquisition strategies was to target professional football players. In their "premium clients" business unit, they had 100+ football players. They also had celebrities such as David Guetta.

• Year 2019: first fund raising, of 1M€. They moved into their first offices, and hired their first full-time employees.

• Year 2021: second fund raising, of 10M€. They hired a CTO, started selling internationally, and grew their team from 20+ people to 50+ people in one year.

• Year 2022: 100M€ in annual revenue. For 2023, they plan on doing the same, but with a higher profitability.

• Year 2023: third fund raising, of 20M€. One of the funds financing it is based in the Middle East, which will be useful to expand in that region.

• 20% of the annual revenue is made outside of France.

• After France, the countries where they sell the most are Belgium, Germany, and Italy. The UK is falling behind because of frontier taxes (hello, Brexit).

• Team of 120+ people.

• Sneakers account for 95% of their business. They would like to diversify by developing other product categories such as street wear and accessories.

This 1h45 interview was extremely interesting. I'm truly amazed at what Michael, David, and their team, have accomplished in under 7 years.

Besides Wethenew's impressive numbers, it was amazing to witness how passionate Michael is about his core business. It's not only about the sneakers, it's about the urban culture they are a part of. Michael loves this ecosystem and dreams of creating Wethenew’s own sneakers in collaboration with other brands.

Passion, dedication, and execution: this trio truly makes you unstoppable.

Learn more by watching this interview (in French) on YouTube.

Explore

Last week, I showed you London’s beautiful blue sky in a picture I took on Regent Street, in front of Gymshark’s store.

One activity I enjoyed this week was exploring the physical stores of beautiful Shopify brands. For instance, I went to Gymshark, JOTT, and Jimmy Fairly.

I also explored the physical stores of brands that are not on Shopify, but for which I usually shop online, like Adidas and New Balance.

My interest was: how is the in-store experience of these famous brands?

I don’t like it when brands are lazy in the way they display their products. When I step into a store, I’m not just here for the products. I’m hoping to get a taste of the brand’s atmosphere and value proposition.

In Gymshark’s store, I was particularly amazed at the Custom House (where you can customize your clothes), the Sweat Room (where you can join a workout class), and the Joe & The Juice counter (where you can order fresh juices, healthy shakes and protein-packed sandwiches). I love that it’s not a typical workout clothes store.

Our French classic Adidas also made an effort. In their store on Oxford Street, I enjoyed the Running Lab (where you can test your running shoes on a treadmill), the water stations to refill your bottles, the mannequins with disabilities, and the live DJ who was creating a nice hip hop music ambiance.

On the contrary, I was a bit disappointed at New Balance. Their store on Oxford Street has a minimalist industrial style, which I quite like, but their fitting rooms are not enjoyable at all. They have no window, and no space above or below the door. Quite frankly, I initially thought it was toilet doors. These fitting rooms are hard to air out so they’re quite smelly… unless the person before you had a nice perfume. New Balance, if you’re reading these lines, please improve these fitting rooms. We’ll spend more time in them, and buy more products.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading this edition until the end.

I'll talk to you soon.

Take good care of yourself.

Coralie