Since taking over “Noix d’Arec”, the family leather goods business created in 1998 in Castres, Christel Aizes Reberga has been committed and reinventing the profession on a daily basis. An investment which has just been awarded a “Mercure d’Or”.
On September 20, at the Macif headquarters in Paris, Christel Aizes Reberga, manager of the leather goods company Noix d’Arec, had the enormous surprise of receiving for the first time a “Mercure d’Or”, in the E-commerce category (see box).
This prize rewards years of work and investment and highlights the state of mind of this family business, which was founded in 1993.
At that time, Christel Aizes’s father, Yves Reberga, a former tutelage maker in Labruguière, decided, following the closure of his factory, to open a leather goods store on rue Alquier Bouffard. The first in Castres. “That’s how it all started”, recounts Christel Aizes Reberga, who took over “a little by chance” the family activity in 2004. “Basically, I was a dental technician in Toulouse, I was a partner in a laboratory. But it was not going very well, so I stopped. And at that point, my father was wondering a lot about the future of Noix d’Arec, since he was going to have to retire. Personally, I have always had the commercial fiber and then I always followed my father’s activity from near or far. So I offered myself! “, Adds the entrepreneur.
But long before she took over the reins of Noix d’Arec, in 1998, her brother, very keen on computers, decided to create a site to sell leather goods, but mainly abroad. “In France, at that time, we were very few to have internet. But my brother believed very much in this project! He said that it was the future. Suddenly, we sold our stocks mainly in the United States. United. We shipped and sometimes sold to companies that wanted to give gifts to their employees. Because at that time, even Longchamp did not have a website, “adds Christel Aizes Reberga.
However, the attraction for this website lasted only a few years. “My parents preferred to further develop the boutique aspect of the business. The site was still live, but it wasn’t really powered and refreshed, at least until I was the head of the company.” , specifies the entrepreneur, who in 2013 decided to relaunch a commercial site. Here again, at a time when very few companies had passed the course of e-commerce.
The “magic” of the internet
Always with the help of her brother, as well as with the precious advice of a webmaster, Christel Aizes Reberga embarked on the adventure. “And for the record, we launched the site in mid-July and I went on vacation right after, without worrying too much about what it was going to be like, even thinking that it wasn’t going to work right away. . But sales exploded! It was incredible. And that’s when we say to ourselves that it is a little magic internet… “, she confides.
Today, in a context where the leather goods sector is in decline, Christel Aizes Reberga is committed and reinventing the profession on a daily basis, by dusting off the leather goods sector, while preserving the human values of the family business that ‘we bequeathed to him.
Thanks to this, Noix d’Arec now has 8 points of sale, with regular merchandising *, in three cities including Castres, Albi and Montauban. But it is also, 25 employees, a warehouse and a successful e-commerce site. Site that brings in between 15 and 20% of the company’s turnover. “It’s not huge if you look closely. But we know that the site also serves our local customers. We have a lot of people who come to the store showing us the models they have spotted on the internet. When we talk about omnichannel sales, that’s it. It’s the complementarity of the two, total support in the customer journey, “explains Christel Aizes.
The Mercure d’Or, the result of a file carried by the CCI of Tarn
This Mercure d’Or is the result of a file carried by the Tarn CCI, as part of the Commerce and Services Challenge, in collaboration with Macif. A national CCI distinction which rewards the best traders and trade unions in France. Indeed, each year, the CCI network in France highlights the activity of traders, service providers as well as trade unions by distinguishing those who excel in commercial innovation, quality, learning and training, business expansion, e-commerce, etc.
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