Eurokangas is a family-owned company that started from a small fabric shop opened in Lahti in 1945. By 2022, Eurokangas had more than 30 stores around Finland, a turnover exceeding 36 million euros, and roughly 400 employees.
While the company’s core business is still selling fabrics, its offering has expanded to include various products and services. Made to order items, such as custom curtains, pillows, and quilts, have become extremely popular.
Having home textiles sewn to measure isn’t a new idea in itself. What is new is that the entire order can now be placed online from home, and a custom-made product arrives at the customer’s doorstep.
From a late start to a leading online fabric store
The leap from a small boutique to a nationwide chain didn’t happen overnight, nor did the digital shift that made Eurokangas Finland’s leading online fabric retailer.
“We started digitalisation from behind compared to many other industries. At the same time, we had to rethink and redesign our operating methods to fit eCommerce,” says Antti Voutilainen, Director of Digital Channels at Eurokangas.
According to Voutilainen, the toughest challenge has been merging traditional practices and channels with a new way of thinking. An ongoing ERP project and the resulting changes to master data and product information flows have added their own challenges.
Improving information flow and involving people across the organisation in developing the online store has played a major role.
“The more people from different departments we bring into online store development, the better we can utilise all the necessary knowledge and expertise.”
Timo Humalamäki, Ambientia’s Head of Business Development, has worked closely with Eurokangas for years. He, too, emphasises the importance of involving a wide range of stakeholders:
“All stakeholders need to be involved from the very beginning. Each one influences how the online store works—how products appear and what information is available. Small details can make a big difference in the customer experience.”
Building the online store required new ways of working: agility, kanban, and sprints. In practice, this meant embracing experimentation and being willing to adapt processes that had long been tied to traditional brick and mortar operations.
Being a pioneer takes courage
Even though Eurokangas had a lot of catching up to do, it has still become a bold pioneer within its own industry.
“While Amazon does have its own fabric shop and some niche suppliers are innovative, the industry as a whole hasn’t undergone a major digital transformation yet. Online shopping grew during the pandemic, but new services and operating models are only just emerging,” Voutilainen explains.
Other industries and their respective online platforms have also learned from and improved their own functionalities, owing to the pioneering example of Eurokangas.
Courage is also evident in Eurokangas’ willingness to embrace a culture of experimentation—something many organisations hesitate to do. Various pilots were launched and ideas pushed forward even without guaranteed outcomes. For example, a beta version of the online store was released early to gather feedback.
“We took the risk that sales might drop significantly. But if we hadn’t released the store while it was still unfinished, we would still be polishing it today,” Voutilainen says.
“I recommend this kind of bold experimentation to everyone. We received valuable customer feedback immediately and learned fast what needed to be developed.”
In the end, sales didn’t suffer much. And the online store works extremely well—especially when measured by customer satisfaction and sales growth.
“The online store needs to run smoothly and quickly. It matters to customers and to Google, whose algorithm increasingly values speed and usability.”
The online store is just the beginning
Now that the online store is up and running smoothly and customers are happy, what’s next? Is the work done or can Eurokangas take its business even further?
Yes, it can.
The entire renewal was driven by the company’s ambition to expand abroad. For that, a robust online store platform was essential. One with solid fundamentals, so no extra tricks are needed later, and focus can remain on the real goal.
Beyond internationalisation, Eurokangas aims to offer customers an even more personalised shopping experience. Customer data plays a key role here by enabling tailored recommendations, such as curtains that match a customer’s kitchen windows or sofa cushions that complement their living room décor.
The future also holds a vision where the online store and physical shops form a seamless continuum: customers can first feel the fabrics in-store and then go home to take measurements and place their order online.
There is still plenty to do. And with the hardest groundwork completed, Eurokangas can focus on developing new services and business models—further enhancing the customer experience.
Collaboration with Ambientia remains close. And why wouldn’t it, given how smoothly things have gone so far.
“The best part has been the easy and close cooperation. I’ve also appreciated the way developers are selected for the project—not just based on CVs, but through a meeting where both sides get to know each other and see how the collaboration might work.”
