Nepa to tap into China and Europe
Nepa CEO Park Chang-kun holds a newly launched outdoor jacket during a press conference at the Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul, Monday. He said the company will open a flagship outlet in France in July and in Beijing and Shanghai next year. / Korea Times
By Park Si-soo
Korean outdoor clothing brand Nepa has unveiled an ambitious goal of reaching 1.3 trillion won ($1.199 billion) in sales by 2020 by opening outlets in Europe and China and developing innovative products through aggressive research and development (R&D).
To that end, the Seoul-based fashion house recently recruited talented fashion designers educated in the United States as creative directors and established a strategic partnership with a London-based fashion research center and Seoul National University.
In addition, the company plans to invest 290 billion won by 2020, including 40 billion won in R&D and 70 billion won in refurbishing outlets, to bolster competitiveness. The company posted 473.2 billion won in sales last year, up 0.6 percent from 2013.
“I would like to say ‘sleeping means death’ in the outdoor clothing business,” CEO Park Chang-kun told a press meeting at Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul, Monday, highlighting the strong competition. “Competition is getting fiercer, which has resulted in a slowing down of growth with domestic outdoor clothing makers,” he said. “So we have decided to move forward through globalization and aggressive research and development.”
Park said Nepa would open a flagship store in Chamonix, France, in July and in Beijing and Shanghai next year. The company is looking for a Chinese business partner.
“We see big growth potential with the Chinese market,” he said. “It [the Chinese market] is relatively small at the moment, but it will start expanding at an explosive rate in three or five years.”
He predicted that if things progressed smoothly, Nepa would have more than 500 stores overseas by 2020.
The CEO hinted at the company’s strategic shift toward casual attire to appeal to a broader consumer base. Nepa launched casual fashion brand Isenberg in 2013, generating 20 billion won in sales last year.
“Gone are the days when outdoor clothing existed for tough outdoor activities such as climbing and outdoor camping,” he said. “Now it should be regarded as one of the fashion categories people can wear anytime and anywhere. That’s why we recruited experienced fashion designers as creative directors.”
The company aims to increase Isenberg’s sales to 220 billion won by 2020 with aggressive marketing and promotional campaigns. It also plans to expand its children’s products.