Latest / Let's talk Marketplace / 12+ Brands, 20+ Marketplaces, 50% Revenue Share: Inside expondo's Balancing Act #LTM164

Transcript

12+ Brands, 20+ Marketplaces, 50% Revenue Share: Inside expondo's Balancing Act #LTM164 · Let's talk Marketplace

• 0:00
  Foreign let's Talk Marketplace the Marketplace podcast with Ingrid Lommer and Vanner Rich Dichter.
• 0:16
  Let's Talk Marketplace the Marketplace podcast with.
• 0:19
  Ingrid Lohmer and Vana Riedichte.
• 0:24
  Hello and welcome back everyone to let's Talk Marketplace.
• 0:27
  I'm Ingrid, your host for today because Valerie is still off to Tuscany eating lots of interesting Italian food and posting it on her status, which is not, not, not very nice actually to do.
• 0:36
  But well, you know, I think she earned it.
• 0:39
  So that's just me for today.
• 0:41
  And today I've got a very interesting topic for you because we are diving into a question that maybe sounds simple but absolutely isn't.
• 0:50
  And that is like how do you run several different in house brands across dozens of marketplaces without losing either control or your mind?
• 1:00
  So because here's the thing, many companies normally strug get one brand right on marketplaces, right?
• 1:06
  So but today's guest company decided that wasn't enough of a challenge obviously.
• 1:11
  And so Expando is with us.
• 1:13
  And as I just learned, I thought you are having six brands active on marketplaces from lots of different categories, but actually it's even more than that.
• 1:23
  So yeah, more to talk about.
• 1:24
  So I'm really happy to have you with us, Elena, Director of Digital Commerce and growth at Expando.
• 1:30
  Great to have you.
• 1:33
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:34
  This is such an honor.
• 1:35
  And we are talking about Marketplace, which is for sure something that I really enjoy doing at Expando.
• 1:43
  I've been with Expando for about five years now coming up and yeah, we do indeed have several brands.
• 1:50
  We are live in several marketplaces.
• 1:53
  At peak time I think we were live with more than 20 between generalistic and specialist marketplace across Europe.
• 2:01
  And to give you a size and an idea of our size business, we are sending out between 10 to 15,000 parcel every single week in more than 20 countries in Europe.
• 2:13
  And that is between half of the revenue generated in marketplaces and the other half in our own shop.
• 2:20
  So we do have a really big game in marketplaces which we are doing in partnership with Channel Engine which is our TP for all our feed in the marketplace space.
• 2:32
  Yeah, and thanks for leading me into the next introduction for this Elena, because with us also is Jurisd, CEO of Channel Engine who is watching this.
• 2:43
  The struggle of different brands on different marketplaces all over Europe.
• 2:50
  So Jurij, tell me, is Expando one of your customer cases where you can show best what you do because they are doing so many things on so many marketplaces across so many countries?
• 3:03
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:04
  So Happy to be in the call with Elena.
• 3:07
  Expander is one of her favorite customers that is really leveraging marketplaces strategically but also operationally effectively.
• 3:14
  So it's great to see some excuse and so deliberate how they execute on Marketplace and that's a good example.
• 3:21
  So I see a lot of brands globally, some are still in the early phases, some are way more advanced.
• 3:27
  So it's good to see how we've been working together for many, many years and it's not easy.
• 3:33
  So even before Starting Channel Engine 13 years ago, I was running e commerce operations with also lots of SKUs in stock and we started selling on Marketplace.
• 3:41
  So that was actually the segue into Channel Engine.
• 3:44
  So it's good to see and also hear again from Elena how they are experiencing it.
• 3:50
  Yeah, great.
• 3:51
  Looking forward to looking into this very interesting Xbondo case.
• 3:55
  Before we do that, Elena, just maybe some quick words about yourself personally.
• 4:00
  How did you get into this marketplace world?
• 4:02
  Because I absolutely connected.
• 4:03
  When I saw your LinkedIn profile and you called yourself a marketplace geek, I was like, oh yeah, that's my kind of person.
• 4:08
  So how did you get into this.
• 4:11
  Indeed the marketplace geek?
• 4:13
  Well, back in 2012 I think was after my first experience in marketplaces I was running commercial and marketing for a fashion brand.
• 4:23
  Actually I have a 15 years portfolio in fashion before moving to expando and from the glam, I'm now selling popcorn machine, which is much more fun I would say and also better profit than fashion.
• 4:37
  So yeah, I came into the marketplace because really we were looking into new places where to bring brand to customer.
• 4:44
  The customer was starting to shop online and the marketplace was gaining really traction at that moment we were looking in particular from a British heritage brand into our French market.
• 4:56
  And the first marketplace we tried and tested was funny enough, Laritude, which was launching the marketplace.
• 5:04
  So we were kind of a pilot unitique of Laritut at the time with Laritude and a few other marketplaces.
• 5:11
  That how I started my, my journey into the marketplaces was really organic I would say was understanding the customer needs and seeing the migration from a retail digital store and building for them an omnichannel experience because they, they,
• 5:29
  they were still engaging in retailer, they were still really much looking into the physical space but the browsing was already happening in the onlines and many of them were also wanting to check out because now everyone has an
• 5:43
  access to a physical store.
• 5:47
  So that was already happening back then and there were no many TP at the time, third party specialists helping launching marketplaces.
• 5:57
  So we were Doing it manually with a really heavy spreadsheet and then running down to the warehouse to make sure that every single parcel was shipped out.
• 6:08
  With lots of discussion with the warehouse manager asking why we are not sending a palette of goods and we have to do just one single person in front.
• 6:19
  Does that make sense?
• 6:22
  I think it does to a lot of people that are in our audience that are in the marketplace business longer than say five or 10 years, because many of them started out just like that.
• 6:30
  And I heard the spreadsheet story several times here on the podcast already, so absolutely great.
• 6:38
  Jorit told us a bit about your journey into the marketplace world.
• 6:42
  Maybe from you just one question.
• 6:45
  What do you do best today when it comes to marketplace business?
• 6:49
  What's your personal USP when you talk to customers?
• 6:53
  Yeah.
• 6:53
  So looking at channel engines, it has grown over the years because we needed this solution ourselves.
• 6:59
  When we were running 75 E commerce stores, launched our own marketplace, started selling on Amazon, ebay and bought.
• 7:06
  And I was needing a solution where you just connect once and then have an operational layer where the commercial team can decide on the spot what to change, whether it's pricing rules, content mapping, all the things you need
• 7:17
  operationally that has been built over so many years by experts in E commerce.
• 7:23
  Lots of E commerce geeks.
• 7:24
  So some people in our team have been with me for 20 years, even though this company is 13 years.
• 7:29
  So they moved along and that's what you will see in the technology itself.
• 7:33
  So it's super deep rich and especially with all the potential exceptions.
• 7:39
  So it's relatively easy to build something to 80%, but then really have that advanced solution with lots of functionalities, whether it's pricing, stock optimization, buffers, all the stuff that you really need up until financial reconciliation.
• 7:55
  What kind of payout batches do you get?
• 7:57
  Does it flow into your backend system?
• 7:59
  What fees are marketplaces charging and optimizing strategically?
• 8:03
  So it's much richer than just a feed management solution.
• 8:06
  And that's why you see so many of the large successful marketplace sellers using our solution at a global scale.
• 8:14
  Right.
• 8:14
  Then I guess let's find out how that holds up against the very complicated and huge case of expando.
• 8:20
  And we're going to do that after a very short break.
• 8:27
  Expanding into a new marketplace country usually means one thing, starting from scratch.
• 8:33
  So new setup, new integrations and new headaches.
• 8:37
  But Kaufland Global Marketplace is building its model specifically to avoid just that.
• 8:42
  There the motto is one registration nine country marketplaces.
• 8:46
  And they've just added two new ones and that is Spain and Netherlands.
• 8:50
  If you want to know more about how selling internationally on Kauflang Global Marketplaces works, then you should definitely join us for our next webinar on September 29th.
• 8:59
  There, together with Rhiann Schum from Kaufland Global Marketplace, we will cover how the all in one setup works across all nine countries where Spain and Netherlands differ from each other and also from the other marketplaces that Kaufland is
• 9:15
  already covering.
• 9:16
  And Doreen will also bring us some information on how the last additions to the Kaufland Global Marketplace network, which were France and Italy are faring so far.
• 9:27
  And you're not only hearing it from the marketplace side, we are also joined by Etienne Sahin from FTT Distribution.
• 9:34
  He is selling with his retail company on all of the new markets of Kaufland and is bringing his own seller's perspective.
• 9:43
  So join us on September 29th at 11 CET online in English.
• 9:49
  You will find the link as always in the show notes.
• 9:56
  Okay, and we're back.
• 9:57
  So Elena, let's get into it.
• 10:00
  Let's talk a bit about Expander's journey.
• 10:02
  You told us about your journey, but from what I understand is that expando started out on ebay, is that correct?
• 10:08
  Somewhere back 20 years ago or something.
• 10:11
  So how did you get from there to here and when ebay was the starting point, what is now the growth area for you?
• 10:21
  Yeah, absolutely spot on.
• 10:23
  We are celebrating 20 years in 2027 so we are already getting excited about the party that is hopefully waiting for us next year.
• 10:32
  But that started in the back of the garage of our co founder.
• 10:36
  They did spot a basically gap in the market, as they say, tools for small independent professional people when not sell online.
• 10:50
  Really good quality tools were not really much available.
• 10:53
  They were still the old fashioned way of going into, as we said brick and mortal store.
• 11:01
  And that was meant going through different middlemen in the middle so having to hit some certain price points.
• 11:10
  So what the founder did were just procuring products directly from from procurement and bringing to the market online digitally.
• 11:19
  So they loaded up some fees in ebay and started to test it and they were seeing the really good traction for that.
• 11:27
  And that was the stage one of how really expando grow, picking up gap in the market product gap, understanding where small professional were kneading product and then bringing them quite fast in Europe and at your doorstep really without
• 11:49
  the need on discussing with maybe an agent or a distributor or a wholesaler.
• 11:55
  So they were cutting few middlemen as we said, meaning they were able to really hit a Good quality product with that attractive price point.
• 12:05
  And that is the way how the stage one really developed.
• 12:10
  So they were testing product, bringing over and bringing brand based on that really based on the product.
• 12:17
  And that was the first grow leverage for expando.
• 12:21
  How they builded up all the different branding was really because of responding to the customer needs.
• 12:28
  And then became the second stage of growing which was more channel marketplace.
• 12:34
  And that was when I joined the company back in 2021 was really understanding how we could mature that presence into the marketplaces.
• 12:45
  So from being a 30% share of marketplaces by then, because parallel to our ebay presence obviously the company build up their home website.
• 13:01
  They wanted to recalibrate the marketplace presence.
• 13:03
  And understanding okay, marketplace is still really important.
• 13:06
  But the share of our revenue in marketplaces it went down to 30% not because it decreases, just because the shop grow quite organically, particularly under Covid.
• 13:19
  So the big question was how we are going to tackle the post Covid era.
• 13:24
  Really how we maintain relevance, how we still have our presence in market and places where the customer are engaging and looking for products.
• 13:35
  So we review into the full marketplace structure.
• 13:41
  We try to prioritize channel that were obviously quite important and strategic for us.
• 13:46
  But also we try to penetrate using channel in market, in core market.
• 13:55
  We want it to be everywhere.
• 13:56
  Where the customer will be, our potential customer would be.
• 14:00
  And that's not because we wanted to be omnipresent.
• 14:05
  Because if we were not there probably was our competitor there and taking the share out of us of our pocket.
• 14:11
  So that was a bit the two pillars.
• 14:13
  So using marketplace to penetrate new markets.
• 14:16
  So opening up for example Sydney in the Nordic or going into more deep penetration market like Germany, the Netherlands, France or Poland, where we wanted to be a bit more presence channel wise.
• 14:31
  And that led us to our third growth that we are now maturing, which is okay.
• 14:38
  And at the moment Marketplace is about 50% of our share.
• 14:42
  So really, really healthy.
• 14:44
  And the beautiful system that we'll be putting in place is really avoiding this cannibalization between channels.
• 14:52
  So balancing the margin between channel making sure that there is not a channel that took over another one just because it's more profitable or sorry, because the price is more attractive from a customer point of view.
• 15:12
  But really because it's more strategic in terms of product placement.
• 15:17
  And the third part of this grow as I'm mentioning, which is the new one is working on the lifetime value.
• 15:24
  So making sure that the grow will become at heart because the customer coming back and they grow with us within the years.
• 15:33
  And we become expando become the leading partner for them, grow for them independent small store or shop or restaurant that they have.
• 15:44
  And they will start the journey directly in expando when they need a tool for them business.
• 15:53
  So that is an interesting transition here through the different phases that you were lining out.
• 15:59
  So what you have not really touched upon is your brand strategy because as we said at the beginning, you are running some 12 or more brands that are active in different categories.
• 16:12
  But sometimes if I get that correctly, they even are running in the same product area.
• 16:19
  So could possibly be competitors amongst each other.
• 16:24
  Why are you going for that?
• 16:25
  Why did you decide to go for so many different brands instead of, I don't know, just putting out one.
• 16:30
  Let's call it expando basics, whatever.
• 16:32
  Expando tools.
• 16:34
  One brand that you are running through.
• 16:36
  All these categories that grow, I would say grow organically in the way has phase one of our goal was going which was really be fast and responsive to the market.
• 16:48
  So.
• 16:49
  So bringing product and bringing to the customer need as fast as we could.
• 16:55
  And that's how the catalog grow up to 7000 SKU really with all these different branding and was the way how we were going in phase one.
• 17:06
  Right.
• 17:07
  So really understanding which product work, thinking it work, it might become core or part of our work catalog.
• 17:17
  They don't work.
• 17:18
  We don't repeat the purchase and kill the skyu.
• 17:22
  At this stage now, which is stage three, as was mentioning before, is a moment where we are looking into the full infrastructure of our brand.
• 17:32
  We are trying to understand what is the brand equity that we have been building across the year.
• 17:37
  Which of all our brands have larger brand equity and which one doesn't really have a strong enough brand equity to be remaining alive as we can say to be relevant to our customers.
• 17:53
  So what we are doing now is really restructuring all our brand portfolio and you come exactly at the right time where we are really doing workshop internal and external to understand which brand will be lasting and which brand
• 18:13
  will be conglomerated within others.
• 18:18
  A really important factor in this strategy is one is getting us ready for the LLM.
• 18:24
  So we know that within agent search our brand authority is really important.
• 18:29
  So we want to make sure that we are building around that brand authority.
• 18:36
  Factor two is that expander doesn't still have brand authority because so far we have been so optimizing across our digital performance in terms of product that we have not been spending enough in terms of brand equity.
• 18:51
  So the brand that have been growing is the one that has a larger portfolio which means we have been Spending every single day on the brand term because we have a conversion to run from that.
• 19:06
  While Expondo because it's just the umbrella have not been grown as fast as Royal Catering for Examp or Finzia.
• 19:14
  So what we are doing now is building this brand equity for Expando itself so that the customer understand that Expando is a kind of a quality proof, which is what we are doing.
• 19:27
  Right.
• 19:27
  We are a German company that bring product into the European market fully qualified, certified, they get quality control.
• 19:38
  Every single bunch of products at enter Europe are fully checked in quality.
• 19:44
  And also we are supporting customer if they have problem.
• 19:48
  Right.
• 19:49
  So this is a huge differentiator that we have on the online business.
• 19:53
  So we really need to make that communication to the customer stronger to make them understanding why they're buying to us is also a question of quality in terms of the way how we do business or the strong the
• 20:07
  pillar of our business for them.
• 20:11
  Okay, interesting Jurit, that kind of multi brand strategy, is that something that you have seen in other customers as well?
• 20:21
  And when in your opinion is it a good idea to run different brands on different marketplaces or in different categories?
• 20:28
  And when would it be better to do what Expando and Elena are now doing?
• 20:34
  Like looking at the brand portfolio and going that brand possibly can stay and is strong.
• 20:40
  And that one might just go, yeah,.
• 20:42
  I think it's always good to rationalize that the whole portfolio.
• 20:45
  I don't see many customers with many of their own brands.
• 20:49
  So sometimes it's a multi brand reseller plus one or multiple own brands that don't overlap or hardly overlap.
• 20:57
  In general, if you look at how marketplace are used are used, it can also be used as brand building.
• 21:05
  So like Elena explained, people are searching for specific products on a specific marketplace.
• 21:11
  And each marketplace has a different target audience.
• 21:14
  So you need to be there with your products where the consumer is searching for a specific item.
• 21:19
  And then if you launch a new brand or you want to position your own brand, it's always good to look at brand adjacency.
• 21:25
  So if you want to position yourselves against a very well known a brand, you can use advertisement optimization on the marketplace to position your brand.
• 21:33
  And that will always have a halo effect, not just with the sales on the marketplace itself, but also the ranking within the marketplace.
• 21:41
  But you do see a spin off effect that if you are effective in making sure your products are found and sold and the quality is high, that people will also buy in your direct to consumer shop.
• 21:51
  We've had brands that also have physical retail stores that saw a Halo effect where they saw a lot of online sales and then later on So a spinoff effect in the physical sales.
• 22:00
  So it's all interconnected.
• 22:02
  So it's not one is cannibalizing the other.
• 22:04
  It's actually strengthening multiple channels at the same time.
• 22:08
  As long as the quality is high, your service is high and everything is working well, it will have a positive spinoff effect.
• 22:15
  So the way Expando does this, pretty unique as far as I've seen it.
• 22:19
  I've seen a few companies in the US with multiple brands, but not as extensive as Expander, but leveraging those brands and then building the strong ones out.
• 22:30
  That's definitely where you can use marketplaces, but also social commerce, etc.
• 22:35
  Especially if you do it strategically and combine this in the right regions.
• 22:39
  Is there a case to be built for having multiple brands that are active in multiple countries?
• 22:46
  For example, one for, I don't know, running on Boel, another running on Allegro and having different brand names but basically being the same product.
• 22:53
  Is that something that makes sense?
• 22:55
  Yeah, definitely.
• 22:57
  Some brand names will resonate better with some target audiences in a certain country, so they can definitely work.
• 23:05
  And also depends a little bit on the positioning.
• 23:08
  So if you want to have similar type of product at a higher price point in one market, would be better to have a different brand name there as well and different associations.
• 23:19
  So I think that the key point is being very strategic.
• 23:23
  I think I've seen it fail where people just buy stuff on Alibaba, put a logo on it and then sell it on the marketplaces.
• 23:31
  I think you have to think about the brand, think about the quality, think about the process and then strategically determine which channels are you going to use at scale.
• 23:40
  Is that something you have Elena at Expoto, like a product that is placed in different price ranges or in different countries and then is running under a different brand name.
• 23:53
  Now the brand remained the same because it's linked to our SKU and also because we have brand registry already covered.
• 24:02
  So in terms of the legality around it, we have been investing money on building the brand and owning the brand.
• 24:10
  So that makes sense for us to have the same brand within the same sku.
• 24:18
  But definitely what Jorits will say in terms of understanding where the price point sit within the market itself is something that we are doing.
• 24:29
  So we do based on SKU level down to SKU level.
• 24:34
  We do our price positioning on market and channel.
• 24:38
  What we have been changing in the last few years, it took us a while have been ensuring the fact that a price point is fixed by market.
• 24:48
  So what a customer will go and find in metro Italy would be the same that we buy in Amazon or ebay.
• 24:56
  So that avoid us to kind of the cannabisation.
• 24:59
  So competing with ourselves basically, just because the price point is a bit different, because in the end of the day you are going to end up paying traffic, particularly if you are paying for the traffic with digital advertising.
• 25:17
  And we stopped doing that time ago, it wasn't really worth it.
• 25:21
  And actually the contrary have been proved that having the same price point build the confidence to the customer that they are buying into the product at that quality, at that price, so they buy more confidently.
• 25:37
  They see the same price point across all the different channels in one region.
• 25:42
  And then we might differentiate between France or Italy or Switzerland or Poland.
• 25:48
  And of course we do that because there is all different economic.
• 25:53
  Bringing a product to Switzerland has a different economic that bringing it to Poland for us for example, or to Portugal.
• 26:02
  So that also comes into consideration.
• 26:07
  Maybe.
• 26:09
  To wrap that brand topic up, just one question.
• 26:13
  How important is it for you if you choose a new marketplace, that this marketplace is offering opportunities for your brand to be positioned?
• 26:22
  So I don't know brand, store, branded product ads, something like that.
• 26:27
  Is that something that is important to you or not?
• 26:32
  Something that would go into choosing a marketplace or not?
• 26:36
  It is important because it's part of that brand building.
• 26:40
  It's part of that building the confidence of the customer.
• 26:45
  If the customer go into a marketplace, they will not potentially know us, but because we position as ourselves, as a brand, they will buy with more confidence.
• 26:57
  I would say also the fact that there is a brand store and a digital marketing availability in the channel make the channel more effective.
• 27:10
  We do see a better conversion rate.
• 27:13
  We can acquire traffic better and we can convert also better traffic and the engagement and the conversion rate of a customer that step within our brand store versus a customer that doesn't get that touch point is much higher.
• 27:30
  So we do see that in numbers.
• 27:32
  So the brand store in Amazon, for example, is particularly successful because we do customize the brand at market level.
• 27:41
  So a customer will land in our Royal Catering brand store.
• 27:44
  They will see the full catalog in a really beautiful way.
• 27:48
  They will understand the quality and then they will convert in a better percentage than a customer that just jump into a random product listing.
• 28:01
  Interesting.
• 28:02
  You already said something.
• 28:03
  You see in other customers as well that brand stores have a relevance today that they might not have had a few years ago.
• 28:11
  Because I do remember some interviews with retail experts from brands who would go like, yeah, we have that brand store on Amazon because then the marketing guys are happy because they can show their pretty pictures somewhere.
• 28:26
  But it's not really something that I see in my conversions.
• 28:29
  Has that changed over the last years?
• 28:31
  No, I think it always adds value, especially for brands that are not super well known.
• 28:36
  So if it's a really tier a brand, you could argue that they don't need it.
• 28:41
  But still it's good to have one overview, right?
• 28:43
  If somebody's searching for a specific fashion brand would be great to see it and then if somebody lands there, it needs to reflect the brand image.
• 28:51
  So it's always worth spending some time on doing that well and it's getting easier and easier and so I think it's worth it.
• 29:00
  Especially if you operate more brands and you want to be well known for your brand.
• 29:04
  Better pictures, better text, good reviews, that always contributes as a whole.
• 29:11
  So it might be one touch point and not for all shoppers, but the shoppers that do search for it, it will help.
• 29:18
  So definitely worth it, especially at the scale that Xponda uses.
• 29:23
  Okay, right.
• 29:26
  I'd like to go into another topic with you Elena, because not only are you going for some 12 plus brands, you are obviously thought that wasn't complicated enough because you're also selling products that are heavy, expensive and hard
• 29:39
  to return.
• 29:41
  You were just saying in your introduction that you're happy you're not selling fashion anymore because of the high return rates.
• 29:47
  But it's not really easy I guess.
• 29:49
  So let's talk a bit about logistics after another very short break.
• 29:57
  You sell on European marketplaces and are thinking about new markets, then you know the challenge.
• 30:02
  Cross border shipping is complex and international returns are even more so.
• 30:08
  Let's call it a nightmare, why don't we?
• 30:10
  Spring Global Delivery Solutions, part of the PostNL group has built a solution for exactly this problem.
• 30:16
  As a specialist cross border shipping provider, Spring GDS delivers to 190 destinations worldwide with 17 operational hubs across three countries continents and the distinctive element returns with Spring GDS cost exactly the same as outbound shipping and they also
• 30:34
  do it.
• 30:34
  No separate contract, no separate service providers, no surprises for you.
• 30:40
  This means outbound and return from one provider, predictable costs and a return process that works abroad just as it does at home.
• 30:48
  Label in the box, paperless return, transparent tracking, fast refunds all included.
• 30:54
  If you want to know more about that, you can have a look at our blog post on spring GDS on marketplace -universe.com the link is in the show notes.
• 31:09
  So yeah, as I was saying Elena, your products are not the most easiest to sell on marketplaces, I guess.
• 31:17
  So how do you go with that?
• 31:22
  What are your most difficult logistic challenges and how are you facing them?
• 31:30
  Thanks, Scott.
• 31:31
  We have a really brilliant logistic team.
• 31:33
  They are amazing.
• 31:34
  We are selling in partnership with.
• 31:37
  We are able to ship product to customer in partnership with several provider in Europe.
• 31:43
  And what we are doing is basically every single order, we scan the order based on the sizes of the product and of the package and the weight.
• 31:52
  And then we compare with the postcode where this product needs to go.
• 31:56
  And then our system run through all our provider and pick the best provider.
• 32:01
  So that is problem one solved in terms of how you bring this product in the cheapest way and most effective way to the customer.
• 32:10
  So that balance also with the delivery promise.
• 32:14
  So every different market has different delivery promise.
• 32:16
  We try to also sell select our partner logistic partner based on the speed, how fast they can reach our customer.
• 32:26
  And then obviously there is the question of the sizing.
• 32:29
  Some of our products are pretty bulky.
• 32:32
  Just this morning we were talking about work table.
• 32:36
  We have really large work table that goes inside the industrial kitchen.
• 32:40
  You can imagine the size of the beast.
• 32:44
  And we were dropping on stock.
• 32:47
  So we saw a bit of a slowdown in our average basket value because this particular product was going down in stock.
• 32:56
  That's to say that we do have really really big product.
• 33:00
  And that comes with the challenge of bringing palette to the customer.
• 33:06
  So again, it's not just drop shipping small product, but also having a partner that can reliably call you fix a time where you are able to open the door and get this heavy large product inside your store or
• 33:25
  inside your restaurant.
• 33:26
  So definitely is really challenging.
• 33:29
  But we have this system in place, as I said, that have been built over the years and have been relooked every six months and 12 months so that we do renegotiate our price point and the quality of our
• 33:45
  delivery so that we can keep making our customer happy.
• 33:49
  We do know that logistic is really an important factor or in terms of retention, 70 plus percent of customer that has a bad experience in terms of shipping, they will not come back to you.
• 34:04
  So it's strictly important that you hit that mark of deliver promise.
• 34:10
  If you promise something, hit it.
• 34:13
  We prefer to drop the mark.
• 34:15
  So promise a couple of days more but make sure that we will be at your door by the max day instead of over promise.
• 34:24
  So we review the promise every month, every peak season, every holiday, every challenge we might have any flood we do and update our hand delivery promise so that we try to meet the customer expectation in terms of return.
• 34:42
  This is also another challenge because obviously this customer needs support to get this product back.
• 34:48
  If a product is going to is breaking down and you are in a restaurant and you need to fry your food, you need that fry to be picked up and possibly replaced with a new product quite fast, you
• 35:05
  can't risk your business.
• 35:07
  So we are aware of that and we make the logistic a priority for us.
• 35:16
  Fortunately, as I was saying, the return in our category range less than a 5%.
• 35:25
  Internally we are targeting a return rate of 3% and we are hitting that.
• 35:31
  Most of our subcategory get a return of 0.5.
• 35:36
  So that means our products are pretty good in terms of quality.
• 35:40
  But also we know that that depends on customer behavior.
• 35:43
  So we know that some channel has I guess, return rate and holder and that's because of the DNA of the customer itself.
• 35:54
  So we do monitor that at channel level.
• 35:56
  And our team are picking up whenever a product is going over the threshold in terms of return.
• 36:03
  And they try to understand if it's a problem of quality, if it's a problem of shipping.
• 36:07
  Sometime we have been improving our packaging with some sku that we're not getting delivered in the correct manner or if it's a question of just the the customer DNA.
• 36:23
  Yeah.
• 36:23
  Would you shut down the marketplace if the customer DNA went too much into the direction of returns,.
• 36:33
  Not the marketplace itself.
• 36:35
  We didn't come across this challenge in terms of full marketplaces, but we are taking product upline for sure.
• 36:45
  When a product gets are really hard at tolerating one specific marketplace, we are switching it offline for the marketplace because we understand it's not good much.
• 36:56
  So we have been doing that.
• 36:57
  In my past experience in other brands, for example, I have been having the case of with Bowden selling shoes in Germany in Zalando and hitting a threshold of over 80% return.
• 37:12
  And we just obviously had to hit them halt and say okay, this is really not.
• 37:20
  Heard that story before actually.
• 37:23
  Okay, it's now a new story for sure.
• 37:26
  Yeah, you're right.
• 37:28
  Elena has been showing very good how logistics refer to the customer and how important it is especially for this heavy and bulky product segments to have a good logistics in place to make the customer happy and make them
• 37:44
  return.
• 37:44
  But there's also the point of the relation to the marketplace, isn't there?
• 37:49
  I mean heavy and bulky is something that is often not really fitting to the typical marketplace dynamics.
• 37:59
  So how does that work out?
• 38:01
  Yeah, I think there's a big advantage if you can do heavy and bulky very well, because there's some amazing products that are heavy and bulky.
• 38:08
  I've got one of those popcorn machines.
• 38:10
  We've got them at the office from Expando.
• 38:12
  So pretty, pretty cool.
• 38:14
  I think in general, especially if you have a wider collection, it's essential to take care of the delivery promise.
• 38:20
  And delivery promise can be based on SKU level, brand level, which warehouse is it shipping from, where is it shipping to?
• 38:27
  So you can work with shipping templates.
• 38:30
  Delivery promise can differ per type of product and how you ship it.
• 38:35
  One important thing is you should be able to switch your delivery promise towards Black Friday or when you know that your logistics provider has a backlog.
• 38:45
  So you want to deliver within the shipping promise.
• 38:48
  That has two effects.
• 38:50
  Because the customer will be happy and if a customer is happy, they will likely buy again.
• 38:54
  But worse, if they're not happy, you'll get a bad review.
• 38:57
  Even if it's logistics, you could get a bad review on your product and it can hurt your seller performance.
• 39:03
  And we haven't spoken about seller performance, but everybody selling on marketplaces now you have to ship in time, you have to ship it when somebody orders it, make sure you have it in stock.
• 39:15
  And all these different metrics are being tracked by the marketplace.
• 39:19
  And if your delivery promise is not held, you get strikes or you get deprioritized in the rankings or a lot of downsides.
• 39:27
  So that's why it's so important to do that well.
• 39:31
  So over time definitely invest in the right providers.
• 39:37
  Even though a provider might ship it a little bit more expensive, if the quality is high and they do it in time, it's definitely worth it.
• 39:46
  Yeah, absolutely right.
• 39:48
  I have to look a bit at the time, unfortunately.
• 39:50
  I really enjoy that conversation.
• 39:51
  But we are running out of time so maybe to wrap this up.
• 39:55
  Elena, you have huge experience in the whole marketplace business.
• 39:59
  You are running multiple marketplaces, multiple brands across multiple marketplaces and hard to sell products.
• 40:07
  So what's your like key?
• 40:09
  Learning.
• 40:10
  Maybe something that you would say to listeners that start a multi brand business on marketplaces.
• 40:19
  What should they absolutely do and maybe what should they absolutely not do?
• 40:25
  First of all, I will say find the right partner.
• 40:28
  That is key.
• 40:29
  So really build up into a long, long term roadmap.
• 40:33
  Understand where you want to be in the next, not just here but three to five years.
• 40:38
  Which channel is your right fit, dream if you can.
• 40:42
  So don't really size down your expectation.
• 40:47
  Scan through all the different marketplaces channels that are available, understand which one are the best Fit also do the proper economics.
• 40:58
  So build your business model a full P and L down to the bottom line with all the costs included and then speak with this right partner understanding.
• 41:07
  If they have all the channel that you want available, maybe you don't want them in year one, but you might want them in year three or five.
• 41:16
  So make sure that once you do the connection, that channel is available for you all the way through and you don't want to add another TP for example in the loop, it's not worth it.
• 41:27
  So speak with your channel and then also make sure that you take away all that you can from them because they are the expert in the field, right?
• 41:36
  So ask them to put in contact with channel.
• 41:40
  Ask them to put in contact with other sellers.
• 41:43
  Learn, do your own homework so that you are coming prepared and you try to understand where are your competitors, where are your customer and what is your best fit really for the product.
• 41:56
  So that you do that full roadmap planning and then look into your data field because that would be a tricky one.
• 42:05
  So make sure that your product is really well organized in terms of data.
• 42:11
  All the information are there.
• 42:13
  Understand the fact that the customer are just having a touch point with you which is the pdp.
• 42:19
  All the information needs to be there.
• 42:21
  They need to go through understanding the sizing, the fit, the feeling, the quality.
• 42:27
  If you have a manual, put the manual there for us is really important.
• 42:31
  We are selling technical product.
• 42:33
  If you're selling fashion that make sure that you are giving that brand vibe through your pdp.
• 42:40
  And then I would say that is the wrap up in terms of your homework to do.
• 42:47
  But key one is really lots of homework.
• 42:52
  I love to work hard, I'm a quick learner.
• 42:58
  I think the last discussion we had with Joris was about fast reading.
• 43:02
  I hope you have been progressing with your sleep reading.
• 43:08
  But yeah,.
• 43:11
  Very good.
• 43:12
  Yeah.
• 43:13
  So Jurid, anything to add to that homework list for our listeners?
• 43:16
  Oh, lots of things.
• 43:18
  I won't take that long but I think it's putting the right partner in place for automation.
• 43:23
  That's a given.
• 43:24
  But don't just look at the channels that you need in the future, but all also functionalities that you need.
• 43:30
  If you hit a certain scale, I think that's important.
• 43:33
  But also look at and leverage the knowledge of our teams, leverage knowledge of agencies, but also be very diligent in who you hire.
• 43:43
  I've seen too many times, especially for bigger companies that hire someone that used to work at a marketplace and don't really look at their their position so that can work, but it's not a given that somebody that used
• 43:54
  to work at a marketplace in a certain position knows how to sell in the marketplace.
• 43:59
  So be very deliberate in who you hire.
• 44:01
  Make sure they're trained well, because it's a different craft selling on marketplace as well.
• 44:06
  Selling in E commerce is a craft.
• 44:08
  And I think too many times companies underestimate what it takes to have an amazing team.
• 44:13
  You don't need a big team, but you need an amazing team that strategically chooses what to sell, where and why, and works together and has a partnership mindset.
• 44:23
  So hire well, train people if they're on the job.
• 44:27
  So we also have an E learning academy, but make sure they really know how marketplace work.
• 44:32
  Every marketplace is a little bit different, but eventually the flows are there.
• 44:36
  So that's what I would add.
• 44:39
  Yeah, I can absolutely second that because I always see that in the room when we are doing one of our networking events, when marketplace people come together, it's a special crowd.
• 44:49
  It's a very special kind of people that always connect and that often don't connect as well with anyone else.
• 44:55
  You need to be a marketplace geek or e commerce geek.
• 44:57
  At least it's geek country.
• 44:59
  So that is.
• 45:00
  Yeah, absolutely right.
• 45:02
  The two of you, thank you very much for these insights.
• 45:05
  Elena, for being so transparent and telling us so much about what Expander is doing and good luck with the transformation process.
• 45:11
  That looks really interesting.
• 45:13
  And Jure, thanks for joining us and giving your perspectives as well.
• 45:17
  It was a pleasure having you.
• 45:18
  Thanks, laringridge.
• 45:20
  Thank you very much.
• 45:21
  And I hope everyone has enjoyed today's episode.
• 45:24
  And if you did, be happy.
• 45:27
  I'd be very happy if you liked and subscribed and followed us on Spotify, Apple podcasts and on LinkedIn, of course.
• 45:32
  So see you here next time.
• 45:35
  Thank you.
• 45:35
  Bye Bye.
• 45:41
  Let's talk Marketplace the Marketplace podcast with Ingrid Lohmer and Vanef.
• 45:54
  You listen to let's Talk Marketplace, the Marketplace podcast.