eCommerce Success Case: Asphalte

Miguel Nicolás

03/06/2025

We resume our eCommerce success cases, with Asphalte. A different ethical fashion store and customer centric.
We have searched for you some of the stores that are doing the best nowadays. Cases that inspire you and help you think of another way of doing things.

This time, our chosen online store is Asphalte. A French eCommerce that stands out for a business model where ethics and sustainability prevail, and also is able to combine it all with a tailored experience for its target audience, without ceasing to be profitable.

To do this, we are going to analyze how they work, their positioning in the market, the channels they use to attract customers and, especially, what Asphalte’s strategy is.

Just with this introduction, surely I have already sparked your curiosity a little, right? So let’s go.
Asphalte Business Model
Before getting into strategic considerations, I think it is interesting to know who they are, where they come from and what their business is based on.

Asphalte is an online clothing store, founded in Bordeaux in 2016. Generally, successful companies tend to be based in capitals or big cities, however, they started their journey in a relatively small town... and they remain in it. This is a commitment to ethics and local development.

Their intention, from the beginning, was to consolidate as a business that prioritizes the quality of its products, ethics in its processes, raw materials and relationships with suppliers, transparency and sustainability, through proximity.
INSIGHT: with fast fashion growing from China, using raw materials and European factories may not be the cheapest, but it is true rebellion. Their customers know they are buying a very good quality product and that it has a much smaller carbon footprint. It fits like a glove to their policy of less but better quality, stop waste and more transparency.
But of course, a business is a business and, by definition, it has to be profitable. How is this achieved facing the competitiveness of the Asian market? Based on two principles:
- Identification of your mission and vision: more and more people are convinced of the need to pay a little more, in exchange for having a better garment. This happens based on expected quality criteria, but also environmental concern (products good for the environment). Let’s not forget the amount of waste generated by the high turnover fashion industry.
- Demand-aligned production: from the beginning, they realized they needed to minimize the amount of products to discard, also on the company’s side, and not only on the client’s. So it is very important to have as accurate a purchase and production forecast as possible.
INSIGHT: the ethical positioning of the brand allows Asphalte to place itself on a price scale above fast fashion and, the fact of working with pre-order, guarantees that it will be very difficult to break stock or over-produce.
Asphalte: Co-creation and Pre-order as Competitive Advantages
At Asphalte the customer is always right, basically because they are responsible for the final product. Collection, fabrics, colors, materials, cuts… practically everything, from A to Z.
INSIGHT: see to what extent they place the buyer at the center of their strategy, that they are also responsible for choosing what and how it is done. It builds from the community, making you feel part of the process.
They have a very powerful tool to do so: forms. On their website they are always available and are quite thorough. For example, they collect:
- Personal preferences, style and type of buyer you are.
- Perception of the brand and its processes (many questions based on their way of selling)
- Product: what you like most, what you like least, what you would like them to work more on, patterns, preferred colors, clothing fit...
- Advertising and communication: from the brand tone, to the models appearing on the website.
- Page and contents: they openly ask you if you like the design of their product pages, the videos they use, if you usually see Asphalte ads (and how often), if you are more interested in some content or others on their social networks or what other brands you like on social media.
INSIGHT: it is impressive to what extent they can know their audience and their interests with a questionnaire. Information from the product to designing the user experience on the website.
I just left the concept “pre-order” a bit in the air, but it is very important to understand Asphalte. Obviously we’re clear on what is meant by pre-order (purchasing a product before it is made available to the public).

But in this success case, pre-order is an essential part of the business model, but also of the strategy and even of the website itself.

Asphalte works as follows:

1.- Manufacturing process, that is guided by co-creation, usually lasts several weeks. Here the testing of materials and the garments themselves is also included. They boast that, if their standards are not met, they start over. It is not a fast process, but it offers many guarantees.

2.- They build the first prototype they are fully satisfied with and publish it in their online store.

3.- Every week a new product goes on pre-order. Always at the same time and the same day.

4.- On the same home page, we have a countdown that tells us which garment and when, will be available. If we access before that moment, we will see the photos, color variations, sizes, but we can also subscribe to be notified when the pre-order opens.

5.- On Sundays the pre-order closes and they enter the more massive production phase.

6.- The process starts again.
INSIGHT: this whole way of working is something they make the customer part of, with absolute transparency, something necessary when we handle longer times than the competition. Somehow, this whole countdown generates expectations, justifies the time needed to make each garment and makes the product more desirable (and desired).
How Asphalte Communicates and Sells
In this important section, we are going to differentiate between their actions in the online store, and those carried out in other channels like social networks or ads on various platforms.

In any case, before getting into that, I will highlight something common in all brand interactions: a relaxed, approachable and close tone, that is sometimes even informative, but without losing that positive character.
INSIGHT: sometimes there is nothing more disruptive than bringing a smile to the user. The public is mature enough to understand Asphalte’s balance between message rigor and relaxed tone.
Communications in the Store
We could say a lot about the copywriting of this eCommerce, and all we would say would be good. From the corporate pages to the product sheets or the call to action buttons, everything has fun and intentional touches.

But if there is something they manage particularly well, it is pop ups. Those pop-up windows that can be annoying sometimes, at Asphalte are almost appreciated.

I am going to share a wonderful example. Instead of “attacking” with the classic message: “Leave us your email to be informed of news”, they prefer to give it this twist:
They are literally telling you: “how embarrassing, I think I forgot your name”. That approach, you just do not expect. It grabs your attention immediately.
INSIGHT: if you want to get users to give you their email, good communication helps them understand that you will provide value and not boring and repetitive SPAM.
They also make very smart use of push notifications, to the point that, once you have logged in, you will have a small timeline with the news and communications they want to send you, very much like a social network.
Communications in Other Channels
Surely you will not be surprised if I say they work social networks very well. It is something you can already guess just from the quality of the images, videos and texts on their website.

But also, they are able to use different registers for different goals, depending on the channel they are publishing on, which, for me, is synonymous with good social media management.

This is always more enjoyable when using some examples.

On Instagram they prioritize more visual or artistic content, that promotes a more aspirational lifestyle. It is easy to find images of men walking through idyllic places like the Tuscan countryside or bohemian cafés in Paris. But this is not what interests me most about their Instagram.

I find this format much more remarkable:
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ASPHALTE (@asphalte.men)
Why?
- Extremely careful aesthetic, which is what you expect from a fashion brand.
- Notes simulating handwritten style, to highlight the respect for raw materials, design and craftsmanship of their products.
- Carousel to enjoy each detail, seam and fold.
INSIGHT: take advantage of each network’s features so they play in favor of your strategy.
But then we have TikTok, of course, and do not think they just repost from one network to another. This content is totally different and designed specifically to adapt to the same tone and language of the network.

In this case, they have opted for a less polished production, at least apparently. The videos they share are more informative, entertaining, sometimes funny, others curious…

Here is an example I like:
@asphalte Votre prochain premier amour est dispo en préco. Avec ce T-shirt Mérinos, on a mis la laine la plus performante du monde au service du vêtement le plus intelligent qui soit. Rien que ça. Et rien que pour vous. Respirant et thermorégulant, absorbant et inodore, infroissable et confortable : il réunit les propriétés des meilleures matières techniques, le tout 100% naturellement. Il est dispo maintenant en précommande sur www.asphalte.com #Asphalte #MieuxConsommer #TShirtMérinos ? son original - A S P H A L T E
- Shows the product in a practical way, sells without doing it directly.
- Projects versatility, but also acts as a personal advisor.
- Always bets on the same face, something really important on a network like TikTok, so focused on people.
INSIGHT: people want to know more. More about you, about your product, your brand, the people behind… but also about the history of the polo or Chelsea boots. Let’s not forget it is a brand aimed at fashion lovers.
Asphalte's Keys to Success
- Finding the balance between their ethical commitment and the most economically efficient business model. This is not easy, since, as they say: if your ideals do not cost you money, they are just opinions.
- Turning a weakness into a sales argument. It is clear that a higher price means having worse cards in the market, but if you manage to justify it based on criteria like environmental respect, workers’ rights and raw material quality, your products become a more attractive option.
- Turning the customer into an active part of the business, not just a source of income. We know very well that you do not get equally involved with a brand that is just there, as with one that allows you to participate in the process (and at this level). This directly affects loyalty, average ticket and purchase recurrence.
- Use of tools on another level. Surveys are usually underused, what Asphalte does proves us right that they can be much more useful for defining audiences, segmentation and lead generation.
- They nail the tone of their communications. What you say is as important as how you say it. They manage to convey closeness, transparency and attention to detail in every text and every photo.
What do you think of Asphalte’s success case? Did you get a lot of ideas?