Swedish High-End Apparel Online

Abstract: The study aims to through a qualitative case study describe how six Swedish high-end apparel companies attributed as part of “the Swedish fashion wonder” with online distribution have been affected by six chosen factors. The six factors presented are extracted from previous studies and consist of customer relationships, intermediary relationships, pricing, costs and revenue, competitors and impact on the brand. The results show that customer relationships is an important factor that most companies value and was also the factor they presented as determining when they made the decision to go online. Costs and revenue have an effect on the companies and was something the companies had to consider after going online. Intermediary relationships are important to some extent and demand continual communications, but nothing that worried the companies. Competitors and pricing were not regarded as important, where price setting was primarily seen as a valuable tool to control and maintain intermediary relationships. Impact on the brand was regarded as an important factor when engaging online, and the positive aspects of increased brand knowledge and brand awareness were appreciated.