JH Store and Jernhest - Childhood friends started up their own brand

Art. no. 216385427 24 Apr 2025

When the two childhood friends Daniel and Marcus moved back home to Linköping, the idea of starting their own business grew. Both had been working in the retail sector for a number of years, and now they had the urge to run their own business. With their previous work experience, they were familiar with the market and knew that there was a shortage of jewellery in the middle class. To fill that gap, they started up their brand Jernhest in 2013.
At that time, webshops were not that developed but Daniel and Marcus wanted to make that part easier for both retailers and individuals. They wanted to make it easily accessible for everyone and they still have that goal today. They started by having a showroom shop in conjunction with their office of 40 m2, which was open 2 days a week, so that retailers could come and check out their range. Over the years the business has evolved and about 2 years ago they moved to new premises of 140 m2 which have a better location as well as customer parking.

In 2017, the JH Store business grew out of Jernhest as a concept. JH Store evolved from their showroom store for Jernhest. In order to have a wider range and a more holistic concept, they started to bring in products from other brands that fit the same profile as their jewellery and accessories. The JH Store has become a retailer of their own brand Jernhest along with other quality workwear brands. The web shop JH Store and the physical shop are aimed at private individuals while their webshop Jernhest is sold to retailers. By setting up the JH Store, they have become their own retailer and expanded their market by also selling to private customers.

Daniel shares their story:

"To be able to go to a job that I have created myself is an incredible luxury"

What do you sell in your shop JH Store?
We created the JH Store concept to fill the gap between work and everyday life. Here you will find a mix of modern workwear clothing as well as high quality jewellery and accessories. We carry well-known brands such as Carhartt Workwear, Dickies, Vans, Red Wing, Blundstone, Brixton, Resteröds, Bros Workwear, Jernhest and others. Our brands are handpicked from the cultures that inspire a comfortable everyday life.

You run 2 webshops and a physical store, how come you have chosen to work with both? 
We put the most focus on our webshops because that's where we can reach out to a larger market but we really like to have the customer contact and service in the physical store. We like the challenge of making it as easy and accessible for the customer as possible in both parts and you need to think very differently depending on whether the customer is in the physical store or in our online store. We find it fun and enjoy taking care of the customers who come into the physical store.

Those customers are easier to see what the buying journey looks like and it's easier to provide the service they need to find what they're looking for. We strive to provide the same customer experience and service to our customers in the online store as well. On the web, it's more of a challenge because how do you drive the customer to the right products when you can't talk to them in person.

Unlike in the store where we can more easily observe how the customer moves and you can talk to them and help them in a completely different way than in the web shop. To get an idea of how our customers move in our webshop, we analyse our data and through that insight we build our webshop to give our customers the best customer experience possible. The difficult thing here, however, is to find a balance because if you go purely by the data, the site becomes very square and flat, so you need to deviate from the data a little bit to keep your personality.

To optimise the user experience we have chosen to bring in some externals to help us make dynamic product grids. We are driven by making it as easy as possible for the customer whether it's in the physical store or online. For us, simplicity and service are the most important things in both stores. We like to have customer contact in the store but our focus is on the online store. It is built to be as easy and good online as possible and then we run the physical store in addition. The storefront is set up so that we can use it when we take social media photos so that we have a neat and unified overall look. 

Why did you choose Abicart as your e-commerce platform?
We started up with Abicart from the beginning when we created Jernhest. The reason we chose Abicart as our e-commerce platform was because you offer many features and integrations at a low cost and it was very easy to set up a webshop with you. We definitely recommend Abicart if you want to start up a webshop. I check around all the time among other companies to see what they offer. I look at everything from similar price range as Abicart to those that cost upwards of $300,000 to connect to but it's hard to find anything that fits better for us. Abicart is a very affordable option considering all the features you get access to and it's also very easy to work in.  

What is the best thing about running your own business and online store?
That we get to do what we enjoy. I do what I want, I have created my own role exactly as I want it and you develop your business exactly as you want it. It's fun to be involved in everything and to help decide how to drive development forward. To be able to go to a job that I have created myself is an incredible luxury.

Do you have any tips for others who want to start an online store?
Make a simple site, think about the user experience and make the site simple and tailored to your target audience. Don't forget to take care of your customers, customer service is worth so much. Just as customers don't want to wait for a delivery, they don't want to wait for answers if they have problems or questions so make sure you are there for your customers. It will benefit you in the long run. Having good, fast customer service and a site that's easy to shop from will go a long way.  

Which of our subscriptions do you use and why?
We have Nordic at JH Store and Brew at Jernhest. We like the Nordic theme best in terms of layout and grid. At Jernhest we tried Brew to test a new theme and because it's a bit of fun to compare them against each other.

We had the PRO subscription from the start to get access to as many features as possible. We need everything from article filters, discount system, price list, login for customers etc. All the features, direct connections and automated solutions available we want to make the overall experience for our customers as user friendly as possible. Much of this is available within Abicart, but we have also linked our webshop with some external companies to make it as optimized as possible.

Own brand Jernhest

JH Store - from garage to everyday