Ïdkids.community broadens international footprint in children’s products and services

By

Sarah Ahssen

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Feb 2, 2018

The Ïdkids Group, born in Roubaix, France, 20 years ago with apparel brand Okaïdi, is active across the entire spectrum of children's products and services: from fashion, with the Okaïdi, Obaïbi and Jacadi labels, to games and toys with Oxyul-Eveil and jeux, nurseries with Rigolo comme la vie, publishing with the Bubble magazine and even music, with the JoyVox label. In 2016, to emphasise the group’s positioning and highlight the fact that it is a community of brands, it was rechristened Ïdkids.community.

"The community is like all of our product and service brands for kids aged 0 to 12. They are all designed to be charitable and militant. But it is also in the image of our stakeholders: our 6,000 employees across nearly 70 countries; our customers, whether parents, grandparents or educators; the children; our suppliers, partners and franchisees; the local communities, associations and NGOs with which we collaborate via our Foundation," said Grégoire Duforest, the co-founder and President of Ïdkids.community.

A community whose family could broaden even further. "We continue to expand our brands, especially outside France. In 2017, we opened 180 new stores worldwide, nearly four per week, and we intend to keep on doing so. And we are keen to develop new products and services to respond to new expectations. We are looking for new pathways, both internally and externally," said Cédric Poncelet, in charge of new business development. For example, last year the group bought the CMaBulle app, which allows parents to share the routes of their kids' journeys to and from school or extra-curricular activities.

The group's community dimension is also embodied in a recently launched project, The Collective Lab. A website which brings together some 2,000 of the group's clients and staff, plus other professionals working in the childhood sector. It is an ideas lab, within which, each according to their specialisation, participants are invited to offer their advice on products, or to put forward their ideas. "We are just beginning to tap into it, since it was launched only last August. But through The Collective Lab, we have already been able to reassess and adapt our apparel range - tweaking the colour palettes, reviewing the graphics - and to test innovative types of toys with pilot parents," said François Derveaux, in charge of R&D and marketing at Ïdkids.community.

Ïdkids.community, which now has 10 brands and operates more than 1,200 stores - of which more than half are Okaïdi stores - generated a revenue of €950 million in 2017 through its own monobrand store network.