14.Dec.2011 5 “made in Belgium” e-commerce sites for men
Belgium is a small country, but nevertheless, I’m still amazed about how many e-commerce sites go live every single month.
2011, like many previous years will be a growth year without many doubt for European e-commerce. This means that a lot of sites are finding their way from their development servers to the world-wide-web, ranging from small shops to huge e-commerce application gateways. For over a year I’ve been keeping an eye open, more specifically on the Belgian market. Most of them are startups, which greatly increases my eagerness to discover how they will unfold into success stories. From all the shops that went live this year, here are, from my point of view, the top 5 you should certainly take a look at!
#1 LFM (Luxury for men) – www.luxuryformen.be
My personal favorite, even though I’d like to specify that this site will kind of make your wallet gasp for air. This site, mainly focused on “all thing men really want” has a quite some exclusive and nice items to buy, ranging from a small replica of Tintin’s rocket to the better Veuve Cliquot bottles (and official fridge) without missing the Mont Blanc pens or kitchen items for the cooks amongst us men. What makes it even more exclusive is the fact that the shop is only open to Belgian buyers. Also, the checkout process is funneled smoothly through Magento’s one page checkout system. Suit up and enjoy your glass of Dom Pérignon 1971!
#2 Razwar – www.razwar.be
Born out of the mind of Pierre De Nayer, this site buckles up for a full frontal blow towards the two major shaving brands (which I will not name any further in order not to get the shaving mafia knocking on my front door in a few minutes). He was inspired to create this site as he felt he was being ripped off every time he went shopping for blades. You basically have the choice between 3 razor types: El Ché (precision, 3 blades), Black Edition (close cut, 4 blades) and El Fidel (fast cut, 5 blades). Additionally, you can even take a subscription to the site so you get your blades even cheaper on a regular basis. Whatever your choice is, you will pay approximately 50% less than the regular brands for the same quality, which means you van spend more on luxuryformen.be. Viva la shave-o-lución!
#3 Pirate Parfum – www.pirate-parfum.com
Wowowow, wait, Belgium is not even on the list of countries?!? That’s correct, I kind of cheated a bit here. The company behind this piece of web is based in Luxembourg, but everyone knows Luxembourg is very closely related to Belgium. If you’re on the field and you’re all suited up, you need to smell good, everyone knows that, but what do you do if you have little or no time to go shopping for fragrances in a shop where you almost suffocate in the smelly damps? You have two solutions: you either start considering using ferns or you order your next smell online. Out of 23 different men fragrances, you will easily pick out the right one by using their intuitive fragrance picker and useful images. Arr!
#4 Decovry – www.decovry.com
A true men’s nest is not a true men’s nest without a bunch of design furniture. The only problem resides in teh fact that those design people ask a lot of money for messing around with shapes. The worst thing actually is that everybody will have the same furniture as you and well, that’s not how things work. Decovry basically found a way out of this by launching a site on which you will get a new exclusive deal every week or so. I hear you saying that this might be the 1542nd group selling site and that might be true, but in my eyes, it’s the only one where you might finally find a piece of furniture for your home. Your place or her place?
#5 Econef – www.econef.be
Another one for your place to end this list, Econef will make sure everything stands in the spotlights. You will also be able to impress everyone by telling how green-minded you are. Still not convinced about buying your light on this site? No? Well they have LED and LED is the awesome way of making light, but it’s still quite uncommon to find a decent selection in most of the hardware stores around. The right lamp is easy to find thanks to the detailed overview and the quick selection tool on the left. Last but not least, LED is so energy-efficient that you will save some more money you can spend on more important things, like razor blades or rewarding yourself with a nice bottle of Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin!