On May 13, the Portuguese Footwear, Components and Leather Goods Manufacturers’ (APICCAPS) hosted a day-long series of panel talks and keynote discussions as part of the Digi4Fashion project, which supports native Portuguese footwear and fashion brands with the implementation of advanced digital technologies. There, speakers dissected the digital opportunities for this audience — as well as regional production and manufacturing experts — today.
Entitled “How to Create the Perfect Digital Strategy”, the event was held at the Super Bock Arena in Porto, Portugal. Throughout the day, global industry experts presented on timely and practical solutions for the ever-evolving digital commercial landscape, and legacy and emerging Portuguese labels spoke on navigating the digital landscape today. More than 200 professionals from across design, production and manufacturing, marketing and PR were in attendance.
APICCAPS sought to provide this programming as an entity that launched 50 years ago to represent and support Portugal’s traditional leather goods and footwear production companies. Today, it includes more than 1,900 Portuguese companies that employ over 40,000 people.
“Digital is a gateway to new markets — and ways of creating value. It serves to amplify what we do best: creating quality products and sharing them with the world,” Luis Onofre, president of APICCAPS, told BoF at the event. “This is how great opportunities come about.”
Over the next decade, the Portuguese government has pledged an investment of over €600 million for technological innovation in the Portuguese supply chain, to optimise production and add to the competitive advantage of Europe’s second-largest footwear exporter.
At the event, The Business of Fashion‘s (BoF) commercial editorial features director Sophie Soar presented on opportunities and innovation in e-commerce. The talk covered evolving consumer behaviour, how to build the perfect e-commerce site, and some of the next-generation technologies shaping online retail today.
The audience also heard from leaders at Condé Nast and Lisboa Fashion Week, as well as entrepreneurs, creatives and content creators across the Portuguese industries.
Below, BoF shares some of the most pertinent challenges and opportunities shaping digital strategies for Portuguese footwear and fashion retailers today — as informed by interviews with executives at brands including Luis Onofre, Ambitious, Sanjo and Lemonade, as well as the presentation Soar gave at the event.
Optimising for the New Product and Brand Discovery Journey
Today, consumers are discovering brands through more digital channels than ever before — with the first and deepest connection likely to happen over social media. In fact, brand discovery through social media is now equally as common as through search engines, with 38 percent and 37 percent of customers using the discovery methods, respectively.
As a result, the way in which consumers discover a brand’s own e-commerce site is predominantly at the end of the consumer journey, having been driven there from points of discovery across social media, newsletters and other forms of content discovery.
This new consumer journey was reflected by an event attendee Silvia Silva, founder and chief executive of the digital-first accessories brand Lemonade. While “the main selling point for the brand is our e-commerce, […] the main strategy is working with social campaigns,” she told BoF.
Another attendee — Vítor Costa, creative director of legacy footwear brand Sanjo — told BoF that when Sanjo relaunched a few years ago, the 92-year-old brand introduced a digital communication strategy around brand newsletters and social media activity, to drive customers to both digital and physical stores.
Digital is a gateway to new markets — and ways of creating value. It serves to amplify what we do best: creating quality products and sharing them with the world.
— Luis Onofre, president of APICCAPS.
Optimising various touchpoints consumers have with a brand across channels is key to delivering a consistent — and engaging — brand message.
“It is typically best practice for brands to aim for a consistent look and feel between their homepage and their digital presence across social media feeds, newsletters and [other platforms], particularly if their customers are coming from the likes of Instagram and TikTok,” Soar said on stage. An example she highlighted was Hailey Bieber‘s beauty business Rhode, which spotlights highly engaged social content with Bieber on the brand’s homepage.
Indeed, the consumers discovering brands and products off-site first are typically driven not to a brand’s homepage but to a product page — where they have the most intent to purchase.
As a result, optimising these product pages is critical, with many brands upping their game here. “You’ll see more high-quality photography and videos, more detailed information customised to individual items — and answering the kind of questions consumers might have,” Soar said on stage.
She made reference to Loewe’s product pages, which answer key questions consumers will have — and likely will not find elsewhere online. For instance, on the Loewe Puzzle Bag product page “How do I style this bag? What’s the story behind it? What fits inside it?”
Telling a Brand Story in an Oversaturated Market
Consumers today are overwhelmed with choice, which is negatively impacting engagement and conversion online, and the way consumers are seeking out products. In BoF and McKinsey & Co.’s The State of Fashion 2025 report, 74 percent of customers report walking away from online purchases due to the volume of choice.
This oversaturated market is naturally having a distinct impact on brands as well, as noted by André Ribeiro, marketing and communications director at Ambitious, a family-run footwear brand launched in 2008.
“This competition of new brands emerging all the time is so overwhelming,” said Ribeiro. “That’s pressuring digital.” He also notes how it is driving up the cost of “influencer marketing, paid media, paid search, and every other strategy or investment.”
As BoF reported in 2023, customer acquisition costs were rising on average 70 percent on TikTok and 39 percent on Meta platforms. In 2022, advertisers spent about $29 to acquire each customer, compared with $9 in 2013. The price of online advertising has only increased.
What’s more, the algorithm is hard to predict, throwing new challenges at social strategies. As Luis Onofre, founder of his eponymous brand and president of APICCAPS, shared with BoF: “It’s changing every day. We need a different approach every day. A different TikTok goes viral, sometimes it’s funny but only two or three people watch it. And what is the point to spend maybe €10,000 or €15,000 on production and nobody’s gonna see it.”
Indeed, the e-commerce homepage remains a critical — and often underutilised — space to tell a brand’s story. It provides a “look into your creative vision and universe,” as Soar said on stage, spotlighting brands like On and their ethos are professional and everyday athletes. These narratives then tie back to the product lines they offer, divided by the activities in which their consumers engage.
Silva shared how her brand focuses on storytelling around the quality of their hats to educate consumers on their price point. (Lemonade hats sit between €65 and €640, with its classic fedora hat at €165).
“We try to show the way we produce our hats,” said Silva. “We do it super traditionally. They are made by hand. It’s super hard to [communicate to] the right people, but with the right storytelling, you can.”
Sanjo has faced challenges around communicating the role Portugal plays in the brand narrative, with Costa noting, “Portugal is best known for its manufacturing abilities and sometimes, that’s our strength. But it can also pose some challenges because when you try to go global, when you try to build a brand, that is sometimes seen as a disadvantage in a way.”
Each brand needs to have its own design perspective or capability to deliver something special to the consumer.
— Vítor Costa, creative director of Sanjo.
For Ribeiro at Ambitious, he added that the narrative around Portugal is “opening doors in terms of product quality perception to the consumer.”
Sanjo, which relies on its nearly 100-year legacy, is innovating to attract younger and newer demographics to broaden its appeal — particularly in places like Japan and Scandinavia. However, it notes that competing with global giants and fast fashion in a tight economy poses its challenges.
“How can we not be so overwhelmed by [the markets]? By having something unique. Each brand needs to have its own design perspective or capability to deliver something special to the consumer — which will differentiate it in the market today,” said Costa.
Leveraging AI Technologies to Meet Consumer Needs in Personalisation
New technologies are transforming the ways in which retailers connect with customers. As such tools become increasingly embedded across the value chain, brands are aptly positioned to leverage them to increase consumer engagement and sales.
Ambitious, for example, is turning its priority towards using data-driven insights and digital tools to optimise customer engagement. “The investment in digital opens doors to retail.”
However, a new era of brand and product discovery — underpinned by AI-powered curation across content and search — will help users find not just any product, but the right product.
In fact, 84 percent of brands report that hyper-personalised experiences across customer touchpoints is a top priority in 2025, according to The State of Fashion 2025 report — making it a must-have to implement. The consumer is also keen to try new tools and technologies, with 86 percent of consumers who haven’t used AI for shopping would be interested in using it to research products or get information, according to research by IBM.
Both the search bar and chatbots are areas “ripe for AI-optimisation,” Soar said on stage. “Large language-powered shopping assistants — leveraging open sources like ChatGPT combined with a website’ own data — allow users to receive more interactive Q&A, and offer customised product recommendations.”
The technology provides a solution to the need for “edit” (offering the best options) versus “access” (providing many options) — with AI able to share with consumers their recommendations for items.
Next generation technologies can also assist with size-and-fit challenges. These account for a majority of returns today — which are reaching unprecedented levels. Customers sending back about $218 billion in merchandise bought online in 2023 (up from $100 billion in 2020).
“The digitisation of our industry is the focus for continuing the evolution of our brands,” said Onofre. However, he suggests brands must find a delicate balance, and not use AI to replace the human touch that gives products their emotional resonance.
“Instead of robotics, people want to feel that products are handmade. This is really important for the future.”
This is a sponsored feature paid for by APICCAPS as part of a BoF partnership.
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