Case study
Nudie Jeans ‑ From local retailers to global digital‑denim innovators
Nudie Jeans is driving the digital commerce evolution forward by erasing the boundaries between online direct-to-consumer, digital-wholesale, and physical retail
Gothenburg based denim visionaries, Nudie Jeans, exploded onto the scene in 2001 and quickly grew from a small jeans shop to a global competitor. To elevate their online identity further, Nudie switched to “headless” on Centra in 2016 and saw an immediate average yearly growth of 24% – with a yearly revenue of 498 MSEK in 2018. Today they are a global craft jeans powerhouse that has erased the boundaries between online direct‑to‑consumer, digital wholesale and physical retail.
The challenges
But the success story of Nudie Jeans wasn’t always a walk in the park. As they grew, Nudie Jeans eventually found themselves facing challenges in scaling up the digital side of their business. Main issues were recurring downtime and rapidly increasing man‑hours for handling the growing global demand for their products. With a strong physical presence and large wholesale operation, they needed to act fast and find a solution that could transform their physical presence and strong identity into a flexible omni‑channel experience – where their physical and digital operations seamlessly work in symbiosis.
A headless realization
Nudie Jeans realized they needed to shake things up to be in the absolute forefront of digital technology. This meant abandoning their traditional monolithic ecommerce architecture, in favor of Centras’ headless technology. The technology allowed them to build a responsive and on‑brand site together with Aino Agency, where content and products seamlessly flow together on all 54 international markets that are individually controlled from one setup.
A major improvement from switching to Centras’ headless technology is the speed combined with the freedom and flexibility of design in the front end. It has allowed us to be visually true to our brand while carrying out a rapid‑fast, global, online operation.
Digital Tech Lead, Nudie Jeans
All the way digital
But Nudie didn’t stop there. They also decided to take their digital transformation one step further by digitizing their wholesale business on Centra Showroom. By doing so, they were able to cut cumbersome costs on managing a large salesforce, and instead focus on what they do best – creating durable and sustainable garments for their global fanbase.
One of the unique things about Centra, is that they are entirely focused on fashion and lifestyle brands. Besides solving our direct‑to‑consumer needs, they also enabled us to digitize our wholesale which has allowed us to transform our previously analogue wholesale business, into a complete self‑service digital wholesale experience
COO of Nudie Jeans
Nudie Jeans' current ecommerce tech-stack on Centra
| Ecommerce platform | Centra |
|---|---|
| Wholesale and B2B | Centra Showroom |
| CMS | Contentful |
| Payment methods | Adyen, Klarna, PayPal |
| Shipping method | Ingrid |
| Email automation and loyalty | Voyado |
The results: Higher efficiency, increased sales and boundaryless commerce
After teaming up with Centra, Nudie Jeans has taken their brand to the next level and laid out the blueprint for how classic brands can grow and excel by adopting digital technology. Today they are running a larger operation at higher efficiency, through both online and digital retail. The results speak for themselves:
54 active online markets worldwide
Costs of hosting down by 50% since joining Centra
True omni-channel solutions between physical shops and digital shops
