Insid View
know the other firms pitching for it felt the same.” These were ‘D’ days for Kevco - dispirited, despondent and disenchanted - as they had invested a great deal of time and resources into the Dreamgirl project. But instead of just retreating to the footwear market they made enquiries with their suppliers about other brands and decided to visit the next lingerie trade show in the US - and the fact that they were already distributing American shoe brands in the UK meant lots of doors opened to them.
“Not getting Dreamgirl turned out to be a blessing in disguise,” says Wooldridge. “Distributing the range for six weeks or so gave us good experience and we proved we could do it. We’ve met Christopher quite a few times since and he has told us it was a very hard decision and that we were his second choice - but finishing second could have been the best thing that ever happened to us.”
Kevco Wholesale has become a significant player in the lingerie sector over the last two years, offering customers top brands such as Seven ‘til Midnight, René Rofé and Hustler Lingerie, but it owes its presence in this market, and even its existence, to two rather fortuitous events.
The first occurred six years ago when Kevin
Wooldridge and Dave Rennison were running Kevco GB, an online business selling parts for Kirby vacuum cleaners. A friend of theirs experienced a family crisis and to help them through it Wooldridge and Rennison purchased a quantity of Pleaser footwear from them. They launched a website to retail the stock and it proved to be successful, so they went on to add lingerie from brands such as Dreamgirl to their product mix.
Although they had initially bought a significant amount of footwear they were soon ordering more - each shoe in the range was offered in 12 different sizes and was available in up to five different colours - and here they encountered the issues that all small traders have when importing goods from overseas - long lead times, shipping charges, minimum order requirements, currency fluctuations... As Pleaser Shoes did not have a UK distributor at that time, Kevco boldly suggested that it could do the job. After providing assurances that its own retail site would not undercut its wholesale customers, an exclusive UK distribution agreement was reached with Pleaser and Kevco Wholesale was formed. The Pleaser brand was later complemented by Ellie,
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another US maker of glamorous shoes and Kevco became known as a leading trade distributor in the footwear market. But then, in the summer of 2009, the second fortuitous event in Kevco’s history occurred - GotLingerie, the UK’s highest profile lingerie distributor, closed its doors. This meant that the UK distribution rights for the Dreamgirl range of lingerie and costumes were suddenly up for grabs. Everybody wanted Dreamgirl. It had won the Best Erotic Clothing Brand category every year at the ETO Awards. they had been stocking it on their retail site, so they were familiar with the range, and they too decided to pitch for the UK distribution rights. “Dreamgirl was a good brand for us, and we knew Christopher [Scharff, CEO of Dreamgirl International], so we made an approach and it was received very well,” says Wooldridge. “We knew it was a big brand and that there would be a lot of interest in it but we opened an account with Dreamgirl the same week that GotLingerie went under.”
This gave Kevco the opportunity to ‘trial’ lingerie distribution while the bidding for the distribution rights was taking place over the next month or so. Kevco did not get the distribution rights, which was obviously disappointing, but Wooldridge says he was even more disappointed by the way it was handled: “We found out we hadn’t got it only when New Temptations [the company chosen to be the new UK distributor] sent out a letter to the Dreamgirl customer base, of which we were one. Christopher hadn’t even told us. We felt badly let down and I
The retailers who were buying from Kevco still wanted to deal with it so when the firm announced it had taken on the Seven ‘til Midnight and René Rofé brands it had a ready-made market. “All the people who wanted Dreamgirl from us began to take René Rofé and Seven ‘til Midnight,” says Wooldridge. “We were happy with two brands but then Hustler Lingerie - who we’d had discussions with earlier - said that they were ready to take our offer too, so we found ourselves with three brands.”
Each brand has its own identity and place in the market though, according to Wooldridge: “René Rofé is a complete packaged range at competitive prices; Seven ‘til Midnight we would class as a Dreamgirl comparable range and Hustler is one of the industry’s leading brands and it’s always had a great reputation for quality - it was classed as a premium product when GotLingerie had it. With the three ranges we can offer something to everybody - some customers choose some products from each line while others prefer one brand over another. Because we’ve come from retail we understand the issues - if a retailer stocks three different brands from three different suppliers and they get a customer placing an order for an item from each range they will have to buy from three different wholesalers and might have to pay three lots of postage. By the time they combine the order and send it out, they might not have made anything on it at all, but if the three items had all come from the same place they can make money. Having three brands gives our customers a choice and allows them to cherry pick
Erotic Trade Only June 2011
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