How Camper is inspiring a younger generation of value-driven shoppers

May 31, 2022
Brands & Retailers
Success Stories
Campaign images from Camper

Key figures

  • Sustainability Share* of 91% across all categories (Kids, Women, Men)
  • Leveraging a strategic hybrid model of Partner Program and Wholesale
  • Assortment is available across all 23 Zalando countries

*Sustainability Share is defined as the number of Camper products that fulfill one or more of Zalando’s sustainability criteria and are highlighted onsite with the Sustainability flag.

Introduction

The story of Camper begins in 1877 when Antonio Fluxa, a skilled cobbler, traveled from Mallorca to England. He returned with the island’s first mechanical shoemaking machines and a newfound spirit of innovation. In 1975, nearly a century later, this same spark ignited Lorenzo Fluxa to start Camper, a new brand founded on quality, innovation, and design. His goal was to inspire a new wave of inclusive footwear that connected comfort and creativity - something that other shoemakers were not doing at that time.

The Story

The family legacy of respect for art and craftsmanship has continued to anchor Camper’s promise to design timeless, high-quality products with minimal social and environmental impact.

Yet a lot has happened on Camper’s journey to become the internationally loved brand that it is today, including a decade of partnering with Zalando. To best understand how and why Camper works with Zalando to reach new customers across Europe interested in fashion designed with sustainability and circularity in mind, we caught up with their team based in the brand’s home of Mallorca.

Sito Luis Salas, Camper’s Deputy CEO and Advisory Board Member who leads many of Camper's initiatives and strategic direction, and Cecilia Llorens, Camper’s Product Design Director, who has 15 years of crafting standout and unique shoes for Camper’s assortment, share which values underpin Camper’s legacy, where they are now, and where they’re planning to go. Let’s get into it!

The Importance of Shared Values

No partnership is complete without values that align. When Camper was looking to reach and influence a new generation of conscious customers, Zalando was the ideal partner.

Cecilia: “We share very similar goals to Zalando in that we want to connect customers to assortments that they love and match their morals. We joined Zalando at a time when B2C sales were becoming more relevant for our strategy, and we wanted to reach a broader and much younger audience than we had access to. We weren’t aware how big Zalando was going to be after 13 years!”

Sito:“When Camper was founded, it was centered around being authentic while remaining imaginative, creative, and playful in design and communication. When we look for long-term partners, we try to find partners who share that ambition while enabling us to grow, and we saw those qualities in Zalando.”

How has the partnership between Camper and Zalando evolved?

Sitio: “It’s a constant dialogue between Zalando and ourselves to continue leveling up. For example, our partnership has been fundamental and directional for our shoe criteria development, specifically in regard to sustainability. We now have 91% of our collection on Zalando reflecting those criteria. We have been very focused on removing virgin plastic from our packaging and products, with the aim to increase that to 100% throughout 2022. Industry collaboration is key so it’s great to have a partner to achieve just that!”

Innovation in Design

The making of a brand is in its branding and design. To understand how Camper prides itself on innovation in tackling design, we had some questions for Design Director Cecelia.

How does Camper approach the design and development process?

Cecilia: “When it comes to design and development, we make decisions that consider the entire production process. We created a tool that enables us to measure the environmental input of every shoe that we offer—from C02 emissions to product durability. Long-lasting products are key for us. We want to understand which designs and development processes are best to push our shoes to have both tremendous quality and the least possible impact on the environment.”

How exactly does Camper achieve this?

Cecilia: “We need to design with circularity in mind, pushing to find new solutions for waste and providing former shoes with a second life.”

Pausing to remind us that “24 billion shoes are produced each year and billions end up in landfills”.

Cecilia continues: “We believe that quality is the best way of being sustainable and are constantly thinking of solutions to extend the life of our products. Our Second Life program enables us to collect old Camper shoes both in stores and online. We transform some of them into new ones through our ReCrafted collection, repair some for the use of local communities or organizations and recycle those that are in bad condition into raw materials for new shoes or playground flooring. Essentially, we try to maximise our efforts in avoiding waste. Simplification is key in this process of ideating new ways to achieve what we want to.”

Excitedly, Cecilia continues to tell us about upcoming Camper collections.

Cecilia: “An example of this is our Kobarah shoe, made with a single mono-material compound of 30% bio-based sugarcane, which can be recycled at the end of its life. Another example is our upcoming Junction line, designed to be disassembled, repaired, and re-used. We’re lucky to have great suppliers with whom we have long and solid relationships, they enable us to push our collections and shoes farther.”

male model with camper shoes

Reaching a Younger Audience

Authenticity and trust are key to Camper in forging relationships with consumers. As well as matching values, Zalando’s community of customers align with Camper’s goal of inspiring “independent and active thinkers with a creative interest.”

Camper is using Zalando’s Brand Homes feature to build brand love and facilitate dialogues on their latest collections.  As Sito explains further: “Our target customer is represented across Zalando, specifically in younger audiences which we might have struggled to reach ourselves. Zalando helps us to reach them in a segmented way. Zalando Marketing Services (ZMS) supports us with data to depict the connection between our collections and target audience on Zalando. With this, we know what works and what doesn’t and can adapt accordingly.”

Has Zalando’s values-based browsing revealed much about your customer?

Sito: “Zalando’s values-based browsing enables us to keep customers engaged and we see that shoes fulfilling the sustainability criteria yield a higher share of sales than others. Our customers relate to our sentiment for consciously designed and produced footwear.”

What is values-based browsing?

Values-based browsing enables customers to discover and select more sustainable fashion based on the causes and values they care about the most: animal welfare, reusing materials, worker well-being, water conservation, reducing emissions, and extending the life of fashion. By mapping our existing sustainability criteria and assortment to impact areas, Zalando aims to break down the complex topic of sustainability into a language that everyone can understand.

How important is flexibility in a partnership?

Cecilia: ‘Flexibility is critical when launching new initiatives - some examples of this are the Partner Program and Connected Retail. Zalando responds to what is happening in the industry, innovatively releasing services that allow you to take what you need and when it matters most. Scalability is also important and Zalando has enabled us to grow our business - we’re active in all 23 markets that Zalando offers!”

Future Outlook

The team has set very significant future objectives, such as having 15% of their collections designed for circularity in the coming years and aiming for carbon neutrality by 2030. Most importantly on their agenda is durability and continuing to expand the life cycle of their shoes. “We have great potential ahead and I’m excited for the future!” concluded Sito. Looking ahead it's clear that despite launching many initiatives on their sustainability journey over the last few years, it’s only the beginning for Camper!


About Camper

Founded in

1975

Based in

Mallorca, Spain

Joined Zalando

2008

Employees

1038 (April 2022)

Stores

50

Sector

Footwear


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