Q: How is Shopery transforming the retail industry?
A: About nine years ago, we identified a unique market niche. Traditional platforms like Shopify and Tiendanube often fell short for certain business models, especially in the European Union where there were limited options. On the other hand, large market players that offer B2B solutions often were too expensive for most businesses. This created a gap for companies that needed flexible, robust solutions that could adapt to their growth and economic conditions. Shopery was born to fill this gap, catering specifically to the B2B sector, unlike many e-commerce platforms that initially focused on retail and later adapted for B2B.
Our platform is designed to seamlessly integrate with a business's existing tech stack, making digital transformation smoother without relying heavily on the company's internal culture of innovation. This flexibility allows businesses to digitize their processes effectively. Our marketplace-as-a-service (MAAS) model can enable clients to expand their product portfolio, enhance customer engagement, and increase their average transaction value through a broader variety of products.
Q: How does Shopery’s streamlined approval workflow simplify the onboarding process for new registrations?
A: When onboarding new clients, the process varies based on their digital maturity. If the client has a clear vision and understanding of their digital tools and training needs, it takes only a few months. We take a consultative approach to provide ongoing support. This involves detailed discovery sessions to understand their goals and challenges, followed by developing a tailored technological architecture. We map out necessary functionalities and propose a project roadmap, working under agile methodologies to ensure efficient delivery and adaptation to the client's needs.
Q: How does Shopery help its clients manage and leverage their data?
A: Shopery helps clients leverage their data by digitizing their business processes. This allows them to gain detailed insights into their customers' consumption habits. With this information, they can make more informed and strategic decisions, optimizing their offer and improving customer satisfaction. Shopery also provides tools to integrate and analyze this data, enabling them to personalize their marketing and sales strategies, improve inventory management, and ultimately increase operational efficiency and revenue. This way, companies not only sell more but also become smarter and more competitive players in the digital market.
Q: What are the main obstacles you encounter in your projects, particularly in terms of design and functionality?
A: The primary obstacles we face are often not just technological but conceptual. For example, during the front-end design process, there is considerable back-and-forth between the creation of wireframes and mockups and the final approval from the client. This process, which involves a certain level of creativity, can take longer than expected because as we progress in developing functionalities, companies often reassess their internal processes.
A common stumbling block is still inventory management because not all B2B companies have a robust warehouse management system or well-structured inventory modules within their ERP. Many companies still rely on Microsoft Excel for inventory tracking, which can lead to challenges when our platform needs to integrate and consume this data. This necessitates a rethinking of their inventory management processes internally.
Shopery's flexibility, SaaS nature, auto-scaling architecture, and headless development capabilities are significant differentiators. Unlike some larger platforms, our system is easier to maintain and update, which ensures that all clients benefit from improvements simultaneously. This approach reduces the reliance on extensive, costly annual consulting.
Q: What specific modules or services address these inventory issues directly?
A: We offer various modules, such as inventory, promotions, pricing, and logistics. Ideally, clients would manage these commercial rules within their ERP or a middleware, but we have the capability to handle them within Shopery as well. For example, inventory can be managed with rules that make a product disappear when stock reaches zero or becomes unavailable when it hits a minimum threshold. This flexibility helps avoid situations where customers are told an item is out of stock after placing an order.
Shopery can also manage complex promotional rules and logistics for clients with diverse needs. We accommodate promotional rules that vary by volume, date, and specific customer access. In industries like consumer packaged goods (CPG), even small variations in price can have significant financial impacts, so our system is designed to handle these intricacies seamlessly.
Q: Which industries are best suited for Shopery’s solutions?
A: We were surprised that our platform's flexibility makes it particularly suitable for the food industry, which has diverse and complex processes that depend on the size of the company and the type of consumers they have. Although we initially designed the platform for B2B models without targeting a specific industry, we found that our system adapts exceptionally well to the unique requirements of food companies. These businesses often have tailored internal processes, and our platform supports their specific needs effectively.
Q: How does the Latin American market compare to other regions in terms of e-commerce potential?
A: Latin America has enormous untapped potential for e-commerce. Despite the region’s challenges, it offers significant opportunities for innovation and growth. For example, Mexico has a large and dynamic market, with many businesses still open to exploring new technological solutions. Compared to the European Union, the scale of e-commerce operations in Latin America is impressive, and there is a growing awareness of the potential for digital innovation.
Q: What are your goals for the expansion in Latin America this year?
A: Our primary goal is to expand our presence in Latin America, hopefully adding six or seven new logos to our portfolio in the region by the end of the year. We are focusing on markets like Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, each with its unique opportunities and challenges. For example, Colombians are highly competitive in e-commerce, but are deeply integrated with local platforms like Vtex. In Peru, there is significant openness to digital transformation, while in Mexico, companies are now realizing the need for scalable and cost-effective platforms.