Online shops are competing not only with their real world counterparts, but with global players as well. Those who are in their niche will be the best.
When Marcin Grzymkowski sold the majority stake in the eobacco in mid-2015, it was not worth only 230 million PLN, which was 75 per cent. shares. He also wanted the investor, Dariusz Miłek from CCC, to finance the construction of a new logistics center. The online shoe salesman was just beginning to spin and the old infrastructure did not allow him to develop wings. The new magazine enjoyed, however, briefly. It was enough for several sales seasons to reach PLN 700m, while this year it will hit PLN 600m, and in the next year it will exceed billions. Net profit for the first half of 2017 is already 35 million PLN.
Today, from Zielonogórskie magazines covering over 40 thousand models of 450 brands daily leaves even 30 thousand. Internet packages. They reach customers in Poland and to nine foreign markets. These foreign orders will soon account for more than half of the company’s sales. No wonder Grzymkowski is planning to expand the logistics center, but also invest in modern software. To compete with giants such as Zalando, and in the future with the Amazon, it must be as technologically advanced.
The world’s largest e-learning systems learn customer behavior on the site, know what they like, what they are looking for, and tailor their suggestions not only to their preferences but also to the changing weather in distant markets. And eobuwie, like other big Polish e-shops, has not long competed exclusively with local business. Online commerce has no boundaries and to avoid being eliminated from the larger game, having easier access to capital for western players, e-shops must quickly build recognition and reach. In its category, in your area of action become the number one. And grow at least as fast as the market. This local has just put in fifth gear. The Polish e-commerce market is already worth PLN 40 billion according to PMR, and in 2016 it is the fastest growing in history. Sociomantic Labs estimates that its value will reach PLN 63 billion by 2020. We are catching up with the West quickly, but he is not waiting for us.
E-commerce continues to grow to a large extent locally. And while we fear competition from giants like Amazon or Alibaba, they are not able to dominate the world as Google or Facebook. One of the limitations is logistics. Clients are less likely to search online for lower prices. They got used to a lot of choices, much wider than in stationary stores, fast, most willingly free delivery and easy returns. Amazon began to grow very quickly when it introduced Prime service. He covered the United States with logistic centers and began to reach customers with deliveries within 24 hours. This shows how very local is the e-commerce business model.
