Floris: “For three hundred years, our factory exclusively sold shoes through its dealer network. At the beginning of the 21st century, the rise of online shopping put this dealer network under a lot of pressure. More and more independent shoe retailers started disappearing from the high streets due to poor sales and a lack of successors. That’s why in 2008, we opened our first ‘Van Bommel’ brand store on Huidevetterstraat in Antwerp. A second one followed in Bruges in 2009.

The Floris van Bommel brand has its own section in these two Belgian Van Bommel shops. As the brand kept growing, the third shop we opened in Amsterdam in 2011, became the first Floris van Bommel brand store. In subsequent years, a number of brand stores and outlets followed in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. After some delay, the Floris van Bommel online shop also went online in 2015. Our online shop was unpopular with our loyal dealers because it competes with their own business. However, we could no longer afford for the Schoenfabriek van Bommel not to have a strong online presence. Within a relatively short period of time we were adapting to the rapidly changing retail landscape.”