With online retail experiencing one of the biggest booms due to the pandemic, Kokaine is capitalising on the surge in sales and followers by introducing limited edition matching homewares.
Founded by Hao Phu, Kokaine clothing has amassed a following of hundreds of thousands of customers.
“At Kokaine, we have such a wonderful family of loyal and inspirational customers and fans, we wanted to help them share their love of the brand across other aspects of their lives, so we created limited edition homewares―floor rugs to be exact,” he says.
“We have started by introducing floor rugs with designs that match the designs on some of our clothes, so everyone can enjoy our brand in a fully immersive way.
“With many of our customers living in lockdown, we thought it would be a great way to inject an extra bit of fun into their lives. The first round of rugs was launched online recently and they sold out in 20 seconds.
“We couldn’t believe how successful the rugs were. We are now in the process of creating more and looking at expanding to other types of homewares,” he enthuses.
“Our brand is very much about individualism and a holistic approach to lifestyle, so incorporating homewares is a natural fit for us.”
Launched seven years ago, Kokaine uses YouTube as one of its key platforms for sales and online engagement and currently has 35,000 subscribers.
“We show our customers in very raw form―something that we have been documenting from day one, our venture from humble beginnings to where we are now.
“We like to keep our brand transparent and real for our customers so there are no smoke and mirrors or hidden agendas. They get to see why and how we create certain products and the process involved.”
The business is seeing a 30 per cent year on year growth in its customer base with an average of 35 per cent of sales coming from repeat customers. Phu adds that the brand doesn’t compete but instead creates, collaborating on projects with other pop-up stores as a way to help each other grow in the industry.
“There are a lot of brands out there that are trying to do what we do, but they can’t touch our traction and following. We are heavily involved in the community; my girlfriend and I have been involved in just about every type of fashion/sneaker-related thing in Australia. We have travelled all over the country to build the brand, connecting with our followers wherever we can.”
The brand will soon be launching its own NFT (non-fungible token) as well as expanding into retailers overseas.
“Kokaine is definitely up for more success and we are excited for the future. Covid has only helped us to engage further with our customers online.”
