Case Studies

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Van Dal Shoes

Background

Van Dal shoes are part of the Florida Group Ltd. – a family company whose origins can be traced back to the early 1900’s. Founded by Mr Adelman Goodman – the grandfather of the current Chairman – the group originally made shoes in London, but in 1936 Adelman and his two sons decided to manufacture shoes in Norwich instead.

In 1936 the decision was taken to specialise in high quality, wider fitting shoes and the name ‘Van Dal’ was born. Many people assume the name must have a Dutch origin – but the truth is the evolution of the name is shrouded in mystery!

Brief

One thing we do know is that the traditional and historic brand was not immediately in tune with cutting edge consumer technology and the internet as part of it’s marketing strategy. As part of the integrated offline/online relationship, between our sister agency The Works and Van Dal Shoes, Magic were asked to provide ideas on how we could make the internet work without alienating the existing trade and consumer relations.

Solution

A trial e-commerce platform was rolled out to support the Van Dal Factory Shoe Shop. We hoped that a trial ecommerce platform would allow us to see if the target customer group would react favourably to buying online and responding to consumer marketing.

After a successful trial, Magic developed a new consumer facing ecommerce store for the main brand site. Developed to adopt seasonal campaign ‘skins’, the new site closely integrated with The Works’ offline marketing and brand strategy to both trade and consumer markets. With the addition of a highly successful email marketing strategy, sales have increased to a whopping 1900% upturn!

A series of subsequent brand sites have recently been created for Origa Bridal and Filippa Scott – both taking advantage of the Magic While Label CMS platform.

In just two years, Magic have seen online sales go from zero to a combined monthly sales turnover in excess of the projected business targets. A great example of how a fully integrated, digital marketing approach can steer a brand online and make it work to new and existing customer groups.

Now that’s Magic!