Jöttnar is expanding its winter range this year
A company started by two former Royal Marines Commandos is expanding its range of outdoor clothing for the winter season.
Jöttnar sounds very Scandinavian but is in fact the brainchild of Steve Howarth and Tommy Kelly, who set up the brand in 2013 and the company is about to enter its third year of trading.
Drawing on their experience serving in the Arctic and an extensive climbing and skiing background, the two founders seed-funded Jöttnar with their own capital. They then secured two significant six-figure investment rounds from angel investors, allowing them to develop the range and drive growth.
The company achieved six-figure sales in its first year and growth of 240 per cent in its second.
Director of sales Tommy Kelly said: “Our relatively small size and our detailed e-commerce analytics have allowed us to be a part of our customers’ lives in the way that bigger companies cannot be. This is a huge enabler for growth.
“Our new website this year and some increasingly sophisticated back-end aspects promise to really build on what is a high revenue share channel for us.”
Fit and finish are being improved
Co-founder Steve Howarth said: “As climbers and mountaineers ourselves, we were convinced that there was a need for focused, specialist, high-end technical product from a company devoid of broad-market or fashion-forward lifestyle aspirations, which would only detract from our focus.
“Our consistent market share gains have borne this out. This is our most exciting range yet, with improved functionality, fit and finish across our products. We have been able to demonstrate this year the growing knowledge, craft and technology, as well as our ethical underpinnings, which we hold as the standard at Jöttnar.
“In addition, the consumer knowledge we have built through our strong e-commerce orientation has been invaluable in ensuring that we properly understand and can predict the market need and how to service it.”
Jöttnar said that, as well as e-commerce, adopting a multi-channel approach has allowed the company to cater for try-before-they-buy consumers and so they also sell through an expanding stable of UK independent specialists, as well as specialists in France, Latin America and Scandinavia which are yet to be announced.
Jöttnar uses Responsible Down Standard Certified filling
“An ethical environmental, human and animal welfare thrust within the company sees product manufactured with Fair Wear Approved partner factories, zero fluorocarbon use in select manufacturing processes and only 100 per cent Responsible Down Standard Certified down in their supply chain,” the company added.
Details of Jöttnar’s range are on its website.
