ECCO
 | |
| Aktieselskab | |
| Founded | 1963 |
| Founder | Karl Toosbuy |
| Headquarters | Bredebro, Denmark |
Key people |
Dieter Kasprzak (CEO) Hanni Toosbuy Kasprzak (Chairman) |
| Products | Shoes |
| Revenue | 8.061 billion DKK (2012)[1] |
Number of employees | 19,426 |
| Website | ecco.com |
ECCO Sko A/S is a Danish shoe manufacturer and retailer founded in 1963 by Karl Toosbuy, in Bredebro, Denmark. The company began with only the production of footwear, but has since expanded into leather production, as well as accessories and small leather goods.
ECCO opened its first retail store in Denmark in 1982. ECCO products are sold in 88 countries at 3,060 ECCO shops and shop-in-shops, and at more than 14,000 sales points around the world. The company is family-owned and employs 19,800 people worldwide.
History
ECCO was established in 1963 by Karl Toosbuy in the small town of Bredebro in southern Denmark. Throughout the 1980s, the company expanded its operations internationally. By 1982, sales reached 1 million pairs of shoes annually. In order to accommodate the increasing demand, additional production was established in Portugal, and under license in Japan and Cyprus.
ECCO built its own research and design center, named "Futura", in Denmark in 1996, since 2009 Portugal is the R&D center of ECCO and opened its own beamhouse in Indonesia and tannery in Thailand a few years later. In 1998 the first flagship retail store opened on Oxford Street, in London. By 2000, ECCO owned every step of the production process, from design and leather production to branded retail sales.
When Karl Toosbuy died in 2004, his daughter Hanni Toosbuy Kasprzak became owner of ECCO and Chairwoman of the Managing Board. Under her ownership, ECCO continued to expand internationally, and from 2005–2008 ECCO opened a state-of-the-art leather tannery and shoe factory in Xiamen, China.
Production
ECCO owns tanneries in the Netherlands, Thailand, Indonesia and China. ECCO’s tanneries are among the leading manufacturers of leather to the fashion, sports, and car industries.[2] ECCO has engaged in a research program to reduce the environmental impact of the tanning process.
Approximately 80% of ECCO's shoes are produced in its own shoe factories in Portugal, Slovakia, Thailand, Indonesia and China, and 20% under licence in a number of countries including Indonesia, China and India.[3] ECCO projects a brand image of a level of comfort and style generally associated with exclusive high-end shoes, while retailing at prices that are a little above average for the mass market, and within reach of a wide range of consumers.
ECCO Leather, located in Dongen, the Netherlands, aside from producing premium-qualitative leathers for a wide range of customers also hosts collaborative creative laboratories aimed at uniting designers, buyers, production managers, marketers, and leather technicians at its annual Hot-Shop events.
International
ECCO shoes and leather goods are sold in more than 90 countries. The company has its operations into markets in Asia and in Eastern and Central Europe, Canada, and the United States. Their products are sold through 1,100 mono-brand stores, as well as independent retailers and online sales.
References
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ecco. |
- ↑ "ECCO Annual Report 2012" (PDF). http://www.ecco.com. External link in
|work=(help) - ↑ "ECCO Annual Report 2006" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-08-05.
- ↑ "ECCO Organisation; Business Units". Retrieved 2008-02-18.