Founded in Quimper (Finistère) in 1938, the Armor-Lux brand now has nearly a hundred stores and affiliates. Commercial Director of the brand for five years, Frédéric Guillemot has decided to overcome the distortions of competition between physical and digital sales by establishing a new organization within the network.
L’Express: What are your brand’s different sales channels?
Frederic Guillemot : We have a network of 95 points of sale, including 55 branches and 40 stores under commission-affiliation status [NDLR : qui s’adresse à des entrepreneurs indépendants de la tête de réseau]. We opened 15 in 2021 and 13 in 2022. In 2023, we will create around ten additional points of sale. At the same time, our brand is distributed by more than 2,000 multi-brand retailers in France and abroad, and via our website. Finally, we supply uniforms and “image clothing” to the SNCF, La Poste, GRDF… which represents 45 million euros in turnover, compared to 35 for our network of points of sale, 17 for the multi-brand distribution and 10 for e-commerce. Our presence on several markets allows us to better cross the zones of turbulence which tend to follow one another…
In this context, how do you conceive of the notion of territorial exclusivity?
In our view, this notion no longer really makes sense because customers are increasingly mobile. The Internet has abolished geographical borders. The foundation of our relationship with an affiliate is partnership. In this respect, we have always adopted a pragmatic approach, which may lead us to adapt the terms of this relationship to the geographical area, particularly in Paris or Brittany, where our sales network is particularly dense.
Do your affiliate commission candidates express concerns about this?
It is obvious that a merchant who invests 20,000 euros in the layout of his store and pays us 42% commission [NDLR : cette commission inclut le marketing et la communication, mais pas l’outil de gestion, facturé 250 euros HT par mois] has no desire to be in competition with e-commerce or multi-brands. We are therefore in the process of deploying a new organization with a unified stock linking the points of sale more closely to digital.
How does this unified stock work?
In the commission-affiliation model, the brand remains the owner of the stocks: the affiliate does not bear this financial risk. To prevent him from losing sales, we ensure that he has as much stock as possible. But it can end up out of order on a reference or a size. The unified stock allows him to visualize the place where this article is available and to have it delivered quickly to his shop or to the customer. Conversely, if a customer of the website places several items in his virtual basket but some of them are not available in our warehouse in Quimper, we can deliver it from a store. The latter will then receive a commission on these sales. The unification of these two distribution channels, tested for several months then deployed at the start of the year, seems to satisfy everyone.
An article from the Franchise special issue of L’Express. On sale since March 16.