janeiro 08, 2025
With brand roots in affordability and a strong connection to families, Kiabi is exploring new territories, transitioning from traditional retail to an omnichannel platform of services and brands. Supported by Valtech, the brand combines creativity, technology, and data to tackle sector challenges and anticipate consumer needs.
As a presentation at Tech for Retail 2024, Pascal Malotti, Global Retail Strategy Lead at Valtech, and Estelle Urbain, Leader of New Business & New Services at Kiabi, highlighted how the synergy between technological innovation and corporate strategy has enabled Kiabi to redefine its model.
Kiabi’s vision: From style to lifestyle
For 45 years, Kiabi has built an identity around a straightforward concept: making fashion accessible to everyone. This mission, deeply ingrained in the brand’s history, has established Kiabi as a leading player in family-oriented retail.
In response to an increasingly complex market, shaped by consumers’ shifting aspirations — torn between economic constraints (making ends meet) and growing environmental consciousness (saving the planet) — Kiabi has chosen to evolve their vision. The brand is transforming into an omnichannel, multi-service platform designed to holistically support families in their daily lives.
This transformation is built on three key pillars:
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Simplifying life for families. Kiabi is committed to offering a sustainable lifestyle by providing products and services that are both accessible and responsible.
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Redefining KPIs. The company goes beyond financial goals by incorporating ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria into its performance indicators.
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Expanding their offering. By diversifying its services, Kiabi aims to support families at every stage of their daily routines, whether in-store or online.
Innovation at the heart of Kiabi’s Strategy
To meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving market, Kiabi has placed innovation at the center of its transformation. This approach is structured around several key pillars:
Fostering a culture of innovation. Every employee, from front-line staff to leadership, is trained and encouraged to adopt an innovation-first mindset. This is reinforced by active collaborations with external partners such as startups and academic institutions, as well as flagship events like Innovation Day, which combines internal project showcases with inspiring external perspectives.
Dedicated innovation teams. Kiabi has established specialized teams who are responsible for identifying emerging trends and turning them into actionable projects. These teams work across the organization to support initiatives from their inception to deployment, ensuring alignment with operational goals.
A diversification hub. The company has embraced diversification through a dedicated diversification hub, focusing on developing new products and services. This includes ambitious initiatives in areas like secondhand commerce, furniture retail and circular economy practices.
Some innovative projects at Kiabi
Secondhand commerce: A thriving business unit
Kiabi entered the secondhand market four years ago, recognizing the opportunity in a rapidly growing sector driven by a shift toward usage-based economies.
With more than 25 million Kiabi products already circulating on C2C platforms without their direct involvement, the brand developed a three-pronged strategy to establish itself as a leader in this space:
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A dedicated C2C platform. Developed in-house by Kiabi’s Digital Lab — an internal startup specializing in IT projects — this platform provides a structured space for peer-to-peer exchanges.
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In-store secondhand corners. Leveraging a dedicated software solution, Kiabi introduced physical secondhand spaces within its stores, blending online and offline experiences.
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A collection service. This initiative, informed by customer feedback and data analysis, ensures a stable and high-quality in-store secondhand offering.
Today, secondhand operations have grown into an independent business unit, supported by specialized teams focusing on scaling and deployment. The acquisition of Beebs, a platform dedicated to secondhand children’s products, has further strengthened Kiabi’s commitment to circular economy principles while expanding its reach.
Kiabi Community: A platform for exchange and co-creation
Launched several years ago, Kiabi Community was designed to foster a relational, rather than purely transactional, connection between the brand and its customers. Key features include:
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Customer exchanges, a space where members can share ideas, create looks and participate in product testing.
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Co-creation with the brand. Customers contribute to the development of collections through surveys, workshops and in-store events.
With Valtech’s support, this initiative came to life through an international benchmark, collaborative intelligence sessions and in-depth consumer studies. Today, Kiabi Community boasts 200,000 members and continues to evolve with features such as user-generated content (UGC), enhancing engagement and creativity.
Kiabi Link: Embracing nano-social commerce
Emerging from Kiabi Community, Kiabi Link taps into the potential of nano-influencing, a largely untapped resource in the retail space. This program is built on:
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A network of ambassadors. These are non-professional influencers, typically mothers with 10,000–20,000 followers, who share their favorite products and tips organically.
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A win-win model. Ambassadors publish at their own pace and are compensated based on the sales generated through their content.
By piloting with 150 ambassadors, Kiabi Link strengthens the brand’s connection with consumers while boosting its visibility through authentic, community-driven engagement.
Valtech’s collaboration with Kiabi: Transforming ideas into solutions
The success of these projects stems from a rigorous methodology led by Valtech, structured around three key phases:
Strategic analysis
Valtech’s approach begins with in-depth market studies, benchmarks and behavioral analyses to identify market trends and weak signals specific to Kiabi’s sector.
Using the resources of Valtech’s Intelligence Hub, these insights lay the groundwork for tailored solutions. This dedicated team leverages a global perspective, comparing the best practices of over 30 companies worldwide to ensure Kiabi’s innovations are both forward-thinking and contextually relevant.
From ideation to concept selection
A structured ideation process drives the identification and refinement of ideas. In an initial session, 319 ideas were generated and gradually filtered to retain only four key concepts.
The Intelligence Hub played a critical role in this stage, guiding the selection process through its benchmark analyses. These steps ensured that the chosen innovations aligned with Kiabi’s goals and operational realities.
Collaborative workshops for innovative co-creation
Valtech orchestrates intensive workshops, both in-person and remotely, to co-create and validate solutions. Here is what those workshops entail:
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Teamwide collaboration. Workshops involve up to 30 participants, including three to four Valtech facilitators, to structure ideas into actionable plans.
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Challenging assumptions. Each group tests its proposals rigorously, incorporating critical feedback to enhance their viability.
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Acceleration frameworks. Detailed frameworks help map out implementation plans, identifying potential challenges before deployment.
Validation and prototyping: Testing and deploying
Valtech emphasizes validation and prototyping as essential steps in aligning customer desirability, operational feasibility and economic viability.
An illustrative example is the Kiabi Gare du Nord Project, which explored the feasibility of opening a 150 square-meter store in Europe’s busiest transportation hub, the Gare du Nord in Paris. While the study highlighted innovative ways to adapt a 2,500 square-meter store experience to a smaller space, Kiabi ultimately decided not to pursue the project.
Every initiative undergoes a thorough economic evaluation, ensuring profitability and scalability before moving forward.
Innovating with a long-term business vision
For both Valtech and Kiabi, innovation is meaningful only if it addresses concrete customer needs and fits within a clear business strategy. All projects are designed to:
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Deliver real value to customers.
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Be economically viable and scalable.
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Integrate seamlessly into existing processes to ensure lasting adoption by operational teams.
By combining methodological rigor, collaborative co-creation and practical implementation, Valtech empowers Kiabi to turn its visionary ideas into tangible solutions that address today’s retail challenges.
Concluding the presentation, Estelle Urbain aptly quoted Michael Dell, founder of Dell Inc., encapsulating the journey and philosophy embraced by Kiabi: “Innovation is easy. The challenge lies in turning innovation into a real business.”
Want to see how Valtech can support your vision? Contact our Retail team today to explore how we can turn your ideas into impactful solutions.
