In 1998, the idea of selling via the Internet everything that can be delivered by mail never made sense. Even the same Amazon, which by that time had already achieved some success, still sold only books. But its founder, Jeff Bezos, was not discouraged. He didn’t just want to sell just about anything, but was going to allow other companies to do the same on your own website. So there was the world’s first virtual trading online platform – marketplace – which brought its Creator millions of dollars and worldwide fame. After 15 years, the Ukrainian businessman Sergei Chechetkin managed to repeat the success of Bezos and create your own Ukrainian “Amazon” company “Socket”. Let the world glory she has not yet reached, but judging by its scale, obviously, it’s not far off.
How it all began
The marketplaces are different. Some provide third-party companies to place their ads. But others have a full range of services, which the West calls “fulfillment”. This is the way chose to “Socket”. This means that companies can not only post descriptions of their products on its website, but also to store them in its warehouses and even delivery warranty and payments at its expense. Risky? Expensive? Of course! But Sergei Chechetkina did not stop. As Jeff Bezos at the time, he completely got the idea to sell everything.
Bottom line: for a few years, the number proposed for the “Outlet” products has increased tenfold. If in 2013 the figure was 160 thousand, today – 1.5 million Which is more important, this tactic saved the retailer from many problems. For example, if the “Outlet” she bought all the goods for resale, she would’ve had to deal with all the consequences in the event of low revenues. And so all the risk falls on the shoulders of the partner, which the company allowed to trade on their site.
Expansion of the range over time have shown that is suffering from the “usability” of the website. Buyers was simply uncomfortable to view a number of products and find, among the variety needed. Therefore, in March 2015, has launched a version that was more suited to the new format of “Outlet”. The company continues to expand. Over the past few years in its range of categories of seed, automotive products, jewelry and cosmetics, W/d, and tickets, alcoholic beverages. In 2016, she went to the grocery segment, and launched the sale of books in January 2017 – pharmacy products.
Problems and obstacles
Now the “Socket” literally grows by leaps and bounds, but not all the stages of this expansion to occur smoothly and quickly. Competitors of the company, for example, prove extremely difficult to sell tickets, bad things and with the sales of automotive tires, books. Sergey Chechetkin their failures too, not hiding, however, never reveals any details on this. Some experts see this as a deliberate strategic decision.
Logistics
More than sell products, the more need a warehouse to store them. In the “Outlet” understand it perfectly, so its leadership is a total modification of the logistics Department. It’s not just about personnel changes.
The company recently bought a huge area near Kiev to their stores. The total area of about 49 000 sq. m. the purchase Price is also impressive – $ 16 million. But this is just the beginning. The company is preparing to spend more on the full automation of their new warehouse.
The content
This is another indicator that “Socket” has always paid great attention. All proposed content is created by people, not machine algorithms. Now the company employs about 60 copywriters and editors, and even more on outsource basis. According to the Chechetkina, rate content company has made since its existence. Thus she sought not only to stimulate to purchase their texts, videos, etc. “Outlet” seeks to engage those who are just looking for some information, not planning to buy anything. And she did it. In a sense, the commodity description of “Sockets” were a reference from which to obtain complete information about a particular gadget, for example, a book or alcoholic beverage. Read – and everything is immediately clear, the need for wool on the Internet disappears by itself. Thus, the “Socket” and receives additional traffic and potential customers.
Also striking and the base video reviews, opinions and descriptions of products on the company website – it is the largest in the Russian segment of the Internet. And store the video channel on YouTube ahead of the traffic and number of subscribers channels e-Bay and Amazon.
