In March 2025 Best Markets Group advised by K&L Gates and Bird & Bird and Olvera Advisors acquired SurfStitch Pty Limited from Alquemie Group as a marketplace turnaround leaning on Best Gift Group’s “experiential based” DNA to move from a pure ecommerce retailer to community led lifestyle platform. However, when agreement couldn’t be reached with SurfStitch’s landlord and a major supplier to withdraw the winding-up petition, the decision was made to appoint Olvera Advisors to commence a formal restructuring under voluntary administration.
What that meant was a complete rethink of the technology platform and not just a tweak. The decision to relaunch surfstitch.com as a pure-play marketplace rather than a traditional online retailer was more than a tech or merchandising shift, it’s a fundamental re-wiring of the business model and brand positioning.
Olvera Advisors’ Retail team was integral to the redesign of the business. Damien Hodgkinson leads Olvera Advisors Retail Advisory Practice with over 30 years of experience in retail advisory, working in both fashion and consumer goods. “We managed the winding up petition and put forward the Deed of Company Arrangement supported by the company’s major suppliers including the Nike the petitioning creditor. We then designed the new operating platform and business model for the company.” This included the design and negotiation of new marketplace agreements with brands and the redesign of the technology platform.
Damien explains the ambitions of SurfStitch: “SurfStitch wants to move away from being seen as a discount-driven online surf outlet and become lifestyle home for new and younger surf, street and outdoor brands. But getting there involves a series of strategic, operational and cultural challenges that need to be navigated carefully if the marketplace is going to work for both customers and brands.”
Escaping the discount legacy
For years, many consumers have been trained to see large multi-brand e-commerce sites like Iconic as places to chase promo codes and end-of-season clearance. SurfStitch drifted to becoming one of those sites, leaning into heavy promotions, that were sticky for consumers.
Shifting to a marketplace model focused on emerging and youth-driven brands demands a reset of that mental image. Instead of “where I go to get last season cheap,” Olvera’s team identified an opportunity to pivot to “where I discover what’s next.” That requires:
- Re-framing campaigns around discovery, culture and stories – not percentage-off deals.
- Tightening discount behaviour so brands don’t feel their equity is being eroded every weekend.
- Educating customers that value now comes from uniqueness, community and access to niche brands – not just lower price.
This isn’t something a single brand campaign can fix. It will require consistency over multiple seasons before both shoppers and labels really believe the shift is real.
Curating for culture, not just for conversion
“We don’t want SurfStitch to be a digital flea market. It will have a strong editorial and visual point of view” says Damien. The temptation in marketplace models is to sign every brand that knocks on the door to fuel GMV growth. But if the goal is to be an experience site for new surf, street and outdoor labels, then curation becomes a strategic weapon which is more than just fashion, it’s music, food and storytelling.
For SurfStitch, that will mean saying “no” as often as “yes” and designing clear rules for what belongs on the platform:
- Are brands genuinely connected to surf, coastal, street or outdoor culture – or just chasing the aesthetic?
- Do their values on authenticity align with the community SurfStitch wants to build?
- Does each new addition add something distinct – or simply duplicate what already exists on the site?
Curated depth beats chaotic breadth. For younger consumers, the edit is the brand.
Marketplace economics and expectations
Traditional e-commerce models are relatively simple, buy inventory, hold it, sell it, own the customer experience end-to-end.
A marketplace flips this on its head. SurfStitch will now need to deliver:
- Commission structures that work for both global labels and small, emerging brands with thinner cashflow.
- Service level rules around shipping times, packaging and returns, enforced across dozens or hundreds of partners.
- Customer support complexity, where issues can be caused by third-party fulfilment but still land on SurfStitch’s doorstep as the visible “front door”.
Young brands will see transparent fees and clear marketing support. Customers will see a streamlined logistics chain direct from the brand. Bridging that gap is one of the hardest operational challenges for SurfStitch’s marketplace transition.
Technology and data as shared infrastructure
A pure-play marketplace lives and dies on the quality of its underlying tech. Onboarding emerging brands – many of which don’t have sophisticated systems – means building tools that are simple but powerful:
- Easy product upload, inventory management and pricing controls.
- Real-time visibility of orders, returns and performance.
- Analytics that show brands what’s working: which products resonate, which campaigns drive traffic, and how pricing changes impact conversion.
For SurfStitch this has meant leaning on a combination of established industry platforms to achieve the necessary service and stability levels expected, and bespoke API solutions to allow the systems to communicate with each other and deliver the right information to right partner at the right time. It also becomes needs to be a shared digital infrastructure for surf and street labels that can’t justify building these systems on their own. That’s a huge part of the value proposition for young brands.
Protecting brand equity in a non-discount model
For labels – particularly new or niche ones – the biggest fear of marketplaces is brand dilution: being lost in a sea of other names or dragged into a discounting race they didn’t sign up for.
SurfStitch’s new full-price or carefully managed promotional activity flips that script. Brands can benefit from:
- Price integrity: greater control over RRP, fewer flash sales and a platform that isn’t training customers to wait for 60% off.
- Storytelling space: editorial content, lookbooks and social integrations that highlight what the label stands for, not just what it costs.
- Audience access: tapping into SurfStitch’s existing traffic, its 2 million customer data base and marketing channels to reach a national audience they couldn’t easily build alone.
As SurfStitch leans into content – interviews with designers, behind-the-scenes shoots, collab drops – brands gain exposure in a context that feels premium and culturally aligned.
Building a genuine community, not just traffic
Finally, the most sustainable marketplaces in youth culture don’t just sell things; they host a community. For SurfStitch, that means local event sponsorship, creator partnerships and social content that put real people and real stories at the centre.
“The commercial upside for SurfStitch is obvious – loyalty, higher repeat rates, organic reach – but it also feeds back into what makes the platform attractive to brands. Being on the site isn’t just about sales; it’s about being part of a bigger conversation about surf, street and coastal life in Australia,” explains Damien.
The relaunch of surfstitch.com as a pure-play marketplace is our chance to redraw the map from discount-driven retailer to culture-driven lifestyle play. The challenges will be significant – legacy perceptions, operational complexity, new economics – but for the brands that join in the journey, the prize is a place where they can protect their equity, tell their story and connect with generations of surf and street customers on their own terms.
