After noticing a gap in the marketplace for high quality, affordable leather bags, owners of Lambada Leather decided to expand their business online, letting consumers do the designing.
Today, Lambada.com.au allows consumers to design their own accessories from wallets to handbags with just a few clicks of a mouse.
For many of us, an invitation to an event – be it a business launch or a friend’s wedding – can trigger anxiety about what to wear. We may realise the boring brown handbag that we carry around on a day-to-day basis is just not suitable for the event, so we turn the house upside down trying to find one that would complement our outfit.
When nothing is available we shop around for hours trying to find appropriate accessories to wear in hopes of avoiding a fashion faux pas. But with Lambada.com.au, we can choose what our accessories look like.
Lambada.com.au is an extension of Australian family-owned business, Lambada Leather, that takes the stress of tireless shopping away from consumers by offering a service that allows consumers to customise their own accessories with as little as a few clicks of a mouse.
The site allows users to custom design every detail of their bag or purse, from the colour of the stitching to the bag’s lining and have the final product delivered right to their door.
While the family-owned business dates back almost 30 years, it is only towards the end of 2012 that Lambada Leather finally made their move onto the online space. Managing Director of Lambada.com.au, Andrew Ganesan, explained that moving online was the only way to go in order to expand the business’ clientele and provide a more accessible service to customers across Australia.
“The application online means that not only my existing customers, but so many more with the right publicity and the right advertising can learn about what we’re doing. When people find out about what we’re doing, they love it and the purchase comes. It’s just exciting for me to be able to build the company based on something so unique,” he said.
Since its launch, Lambada.com.au has seen customers exercise their creativity in exciting ways often resulting in fashion products that reflect their personal quirks.
“The most exciting thing for me to see [since Lambada.com.au was launched] is people really starting to experiment with design. We obviously have our core offering, and we like to give people design ideas which we update every six months. But people are taking those platform designs and changing them up in all sorts of ways,” said Ganesan.
“When I go to the warehouse I get to see what’s there waiting for customers. People are really getting there head around the idea that you don’t have to carry around a black or brown bag, it can be whatever that you want it to be.”
Ganesan even went ahead to say that the concept behind Lambada.com.au is based on a rejection of mass-engineered fashion, that “fashion is not about what everyone else is doing, it’s an individual thing. It’s about art, expression and creation. And that’s what we’re all about.”
Although Lambada.com.au is now based online, Ganesan explains that marketing through traditional media has been more effective for growing their business, and that social media is better at retaining customers than gaining them.
“Although we are trying to connect to customers through social networks, I’m finding that traditional print advertising is bringing better results – like in magazines and newspapers. I think social media is more for keeping in touch with my customers and for brand awareness,” he said.
Though in the mean time the business will focus on gaining new customers and increasing sales, Ganesan has high hopes for the future and would like to see Lambada become a household name.
“From an eager and ambitious position, I’d like to see Lambada be a household name, I’d like to see a brand built around what we’re doing. Not only is this a customisable business, but we’re always changing. Every six months we have a new seasonal collection to offer,” said Ganesan.
“There are other people out there doing custom-made goods, but because of the complexity of making something tailor-made, it’s often hard to change your offering. So, we’re definitely going that extra mile to keep things fresh,” he added.
More information on Lambada.com.au is available on their site.
