Swedish fashion marketplace NA-KD has sold more than €11 million worth of merchandise during “Black Week” – eponymous with the American after-Thanksgiving shopping rush, Black Friday. In tandem, the company has announced that it surpassed a milestone, reaching an annual net revenue above €100 million.
Based in Gothenburg and founded in 2015, Black Week proved to be a record week for NA-KD – which dubs itself a “mobile fashion sanctuary for shopping addicts” – with two days of all time high sales. The website had more than 3.5 million visits over the week, with more than 120,000 orders placed and shipped to more than 70 countries. The largest markets were Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Shortly before Black Week the company had made improvements to its global distribution centre in the Netherlands, installing two top-of-the-line automated sorters, which generated a capacity increase of over 100%, and will increase long-term warehouse output to over 50,000 orders per day. The sorters represent a total investment value of €1.5 million and will enable the company’s rapid international growth in 2019 and beyond. NA-KD raised a €40 million Series B round led by Partech in January 2018, which helped it to finance these improvements.
Founder and CEO Jarno Vanhatapio said: “We will always work persistently to provide the best possible experience for our customers. The volumes of our third ever Black Week is a testament to our relentless focus on assortment and customer experience. We know how important fast, reliable, and convenient deliveries are for our target group, so this operational improvement in the warehouse was perfectly timed to meet last week’s record high sales volumes.”
Co-founder and COO Oscar von Konow said: “Our new powerful and agile sorter solution ensures flexibility onwards both in terms of volume and product range. The automation will be supporting our international expansion and roll out of more than a dozen new local delivery services in the coming months, including new carriers, evening deliveries and parcel lockers. We will continue to invest in world-class logistics solutions to remain ahead of the game in fashion.”