Australian furniture retailer Mocka has come full circle and is launching children’s furniture – the Mini Mocka range. With the Australian furniture market currently worth A$12 billion ($8.2 billion) and projected to grow 5 per cent in 2025, Mocka has identified the kids category as a major growth segment. “I love that it’s sort of back to our heritage because the first products that Mocka sold were in nursery,” Catherine Williamson, CEO of Mocka, told Inside Retail. “It’s
It’s all about translating the stylish furniture pieces, textures and fabrics our adult customers love, with a tiny yet elevated designer twist.”
The new range invites Mocka’s existing and future customers to seamlessly integrate kids’ furniture into their living spaces without compromising on interior style.
Fashion-forward
The Australian furniture retailer has taken a self-referential approach and miniaturized its best-selling designs into kid-sized pieces.
“It’s such a trend in fashion, isn’t it, when you’ve got mom-and-child or dad-and-child, sort of family dressing. We were like, ‘How do we apply that as a trend into your home?’” Williamson said.
The development process for the children’s range involved more than just shrinking down Mocka’s original designs.
“When anyone is purchasing [for] kids, there are a few things in your mind – you want to make sure that it is fit for purpose and it’s sturdy and it’s safe, but definitely as well that the design fits in the curated space that everybody’s created within their own home,” explained Williamson.
“We can provide the durable, practical items, but we can also make sure that it can fit your curated space, and that everybody can have that at a very accessible price,” she added.
To ensure Mocka’s designs are ahead of the trend curve, it looks beyond its competitors for inspiration. Instead, the Australian furniture brand takes cues from global shows, fashion runways and top interior designers.
This attention to detail and world-building also feeds into Mocka’s product styling which has become something of a brand signature for the online pureplay retailer.
“We’ve created a whole inspiration space, which is Mini Mocka,” said Williamson. “It’s so important to see kids engaging with the product, so you can get relativity of size and how much they’ll enjoy it.”
Brand activation
Mocka is always thinking about discoverability and how consumers find brands online to make sure that it shows up for current and future customers in the right places.
“We truly believe, in the end, we’ve grown from word of mouth, we’re a grassroots brand,” stated Williamson.
After successfully re-platforming both its Australian and New Zealand sites to ensure its online experience is best in class, Mocka has turned its focus to in-person brand activations.
“I think everybody in this landscape is so focused on experiential – how do we give customers engagement and interaction with your brand and your product? And then, for us, [there is] an additional lens, as we are a pureplay,” shared Williamson.
“It’s given us a lot of things to think about in terms of the physical world. How does our brand show up? What do we need to be considering? I think it’s almost an advantage because we’re coming at it so fresh, right? Everything is to be considered,” she added.
In its first experiential activation, Mocka has teamed up with a Melbourne institution, the Nine Yards cafe in Armadale, to launch the Mini Mocka range.
The event’s guest list, much like the furniture, will be kid-sized to celebrate the creativity and imagination of little minds.
“We are so focused on giving our customer this experience and engagement with the Mocka brand and how we show up. I think that’s ever-evolving,” said Williamson.
Mocka’s second experiential activation for the week will be a “shop in shop” trial with Adairs, in its Sylvia Park store in New Zealand.
“We are really taking this concept of discoverability and product, almost asking it to be touched, felt and seen in real life,” concluded Williamson.
“So what can we take from these two strategies to learn and develop what our brand could expand into and what our customers love?”