In the competitive sportswear market, the demand for full customization is rapidly growing. Kaze Club, an innovative Italian startup within the BH Blasted group, recognized this early on. They chose Zakeke to revolutionize their customization process, allowing them to offer complete creative freedom to their customers. This move has not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also streamlined their production process, achieving significant efficiency gains while boosting sales and customer engagement.
Launched at the beginning of this year, Kaze Club, part of the BH Blasted group, is an innovative sportswear startup offering custom clothing for sports teams and athletes. Their production process, entirely made in Italy, is sustainable and efficient, delivering personalized clothes in seven days or less with no minimum order quantities. By prioritizing customer needs and goals, Kaze Club positions itself as a partner, helping athletes achieve their best.
“Basically, Kaze Club is an innovative sportswear startup. We are part of a bigger group. The group is BH Blasted and we started Kaze Club at the beginning of this year because we wanted to give sports teams and athletes to create their own custom clothing that looks great and feels amazing. And we are dedicated to excellence in both design and material selections.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
THE CHALLENGE
Kaze Club aimed to empower every athlet to create their own custom sportswear. Initially, the design team spent extensive time on designs for large sports clubs, which made handling requests from individual athletes or smaller teams challenging. Anticipating this need, Kaze Club adopted a visual commerce solution to streamline customization.
Before this, lengthy calls and repeated adjustments for colors, logos, and placements consumed significant time. Kaze Club wanted more than a standard design catalog; they wanted to offer unique, unseen designs. The visual commerce solution made customization efficient and accessible, fulfilling this vision.
“In the design department, we often spend a lot of time developing designs for sportswear. Since the beginning of Kaze Club, we knew this moment would come and we understood the need for a tool or something that would allow anyone to create their own design without any limitation. And this led us to choose a visual commerce solution that makes easy and accessible for everyone.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
Another challenge was the time spent creating print-ready files, especially when dealing with uncommon names or different characters. This complexity often led to mistakes and necessitated double-checking every file to avoid errors.
The process was time-consuming and labor-intensive, highlighting the urgent need for a more efficient method to create accurate and ready-to-use print files.
“In the design department, we often spend a lot of time developing designs for sportswear. There were a lot of pain points just like long calls with customers just to understand the kind of design they want to create. Another point was the time spent to create the printing files and the need to double check every file to avoid mistakes. Sometimes even after the presentation, the need to change just a little, the color, the logo size, the logo placement, and all these tasks need a lot of time and effort for the design department.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
THE SOLUTION
The main appeal of Zakeke for Kaze Club was its all-in-one tool that places no limits on customization. It empowers customers to create exactly what they envision, offering complete creative freedom without restrictions. This accessibility makes design enjoyable for everyone, regardless of their experience, aligning perfectly with Kaze Club’s commitment to providing personalized sportswear that reflects each customer’s unique vision.
“Zakeke is an only one tool that sets no limits to customization. It empowers customers to create exactly what they want without restrictions and it makes design accessible and enjoyable for everybody. Complete creative freedom. That’s what we liked a lot of Zakeke.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
One of the standout features of Zakeke for Kaze Club was how easy it was to install within their Shopify CMS. Often, complex installations can become a barrier, making it difficult to integrate new tools into existing processes. However, Zakeke’s straightforward installation process, supported by helpful guidance and assistance, made it a seamless addition.
“As soon as I tried to implement Zakeke into our CMS Shopify, it was an especially great thing to do. So as soon as I understood that Zakeke is easy to install in my CMS. As soon as I tried and followed the guide it was simple and the assistance was a really special thing. I appreciate a lot the way people behind the screen helped us to install Zakeke into our CMS.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
Zakeke stands out for its user-friendly platform that not only meets but exceeds customer expectations, leading to higher satisfaction, engagement, and brand loyalty. It has completely transformed the customization experience, making it enjoyable and fun for customers.
Unlike typical customization options in the sportswear industry, which often limit choices to adding a name, number, or logo to standard designs, Zakeke allows for complete creative freedom. This ability to create something 100% custom is what thrilled Kaze Club from the start, making Zakeke a key component of their customer experience.
“By offering such a user-friendly platform, Zakeke not only meets but also exceeds the customer expectations. It’s a completely transformed customization experience, making it fun for customers.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
Zakeke proved to be an ideal match for Kaze Club’s main product technology, sublimation. It allows clients to customize every aspect of the product, even in areas that are typically overlooked, like the cover stitching in the inner neck.
This level of detailed customization provided a great solution for Kaze Club, perfectly aligning with their business needs and enhancing the overall customer experience.
“Zakeke really fits perfectly with our main product technology that is sublimation. It allows the clients to customize the whole product, even in places that nobody usually sees, like, you know, the cover stitching in the inner neck. That was a great solution for our business.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
THE RESULTS
Zakeke revolutionized Kaze Club’s workflow, especially for their sublimation-based products. By generating accurate print-ready files directly from customer designs, it eliminated the need for time-consuming double-checks and manual adjustments.
This efficiency resulted in a streamlined production process, reducing time spent by over 80%, and ensuring that the final product perfectly matched the customer’s vision.
“One of the main features I liked the most was the output for the print-ready files. We loved it because not only people were allowed to create their custom designs. And that’s a great thing just itself. But Zakeke also creates the print-ready files based on our models and our products. It allows us just to pick the file we had from Zakeke and give it to production. For companies just like ours who use sublimation as their main business core, it’s a game changing tool because it simplified the processes of over 80%.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
Zakeke’s user-friendly platform transformed the customization process for Kaze Club, moving beyond the typical limitations of adding just a name, number, or logo to standard designs. By enabling complete creative freedom, Zakeke exceeded customer expectations, making the experience enjoyable and engaging. This ability to craft 100% custom products became a cornerstone of Kaze Club’s enhanced customer experience.
“Zakeke not only meets but also exceeds the customer expectations. It’s a completely transformed customization experience, making it fun for customers.”
Christan Maccarone – Creative Director at Kaze Club
