In this week’s program we are going to analyze in detail the DIY, gardening and home marketplace ManoMano, of French origin, despite its name. It is a 100% digital project in a vertical that a priori sounds like a more common offline purchase.
We are used to talking about how to move Spanish projects abroad and in this case with Elizabeth SalazarCountry Manager of Hand hand in Spain, we will discuss the challenge of entering the Spanish market for a French business.
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Interview with Isabel Salazar (ManoMano)
7:24 What caught your attention about ManoMano?
ManoMano was born in 2013 in , and we launched it in Spain in 2015. It was the first country we launched after France, so we had a certain track record. What struck me about the proposal, in the first place, were the company’s values: ingenuity, daring and responsibility towards others. Likewise, I like this more human value, of running a business, which can sometimes be complicated, but with respect for suppliers, sellers, customers, and the employees themselves.
The project caught my attention, because I think eCommerce is the future and is still very much under development in Spain, specifically marketplaces. Finally, I have always liked the gardening, home and DIY sector and had a personal affinity.
9:00 Tell us, what is ManoMano? When was it born? What is the current photo of the project?
ManoMano is an online leader in the sale of home, garden and DIY products. We are present in 6 countries in Europe: France, Belgium, England, Germany, Italy and Spain. We are a marketplace that has a proposal, both B2C and B2B, that is, for individuals who are fans of decoration, DIY and gardening, as well as for professionals in construction or other areas.
10:10 What was the criteria for choosing Spain as an expansion market?
The criterion was that Spain was a country with a lot of potential. It must be recognized that in terms of eCommerce maturity, we are below Northern European countries. Although the growth is positive and optimistic, in these years of the pandemic eCommerce has been growing in double digits, I believe that the data for 2021 is 17% growth, so it is a country with many opportunities for sales development on-line.
Ahere we have very relevant manufacturers in the world of furniture and there were many business opportunities. Spain is a country where we have all our services, something that does not happen in all countries. We have the B2C platform, the ManoMano Pro platform, for professionals, mobile applications for both audiences, a logistics center, a fulfillment center, we have an office in Barcelona.
On the other hand, we also decided to contract in Spain, because it was decided that it was a technology talent pool and since we are a fully technological network company, the first place where we opened offices after France was Spain, Barcelona.
11:58 Are you a pure player online? Don’t you have a physical store?
We do not have a physical store. We are a marketplace that we call “selective”, we select the sellers or manufacturers that sell on our platform. We do it this way because we want to have the best service and the best products for the end customer, as well as allowing us to provide dedicated support to our sellers. We are almost a digital partner for our sellers, many of them took the leap to digitize their catalog with us.
In France we don’t have a physical store either. It is a conversation that we have always had, but the issue is that the DIY sector, gardening, is little digitized compared to fashion or food. It is a sector that has a long way to go, it is true that the pandemic has been very recursive and we have all started to buy more products for the home online. Before the pandemic, digitization money was 9% in our country and after the pandemic it is estimated that we are at 12%, which is still far behind other sectors.
17:25 I am interested in the flexible policy, they decided on the most difficult option to manage, how are they doing?
It has been a great challenge for our human resources team, but also a great achievement. First, because it was an initiative that came from the employees: a consultation was carried out, where the employees were asked and the need to change towards a totally flexible policy was identified.
This policy has many implications, because the office must be sized and ensure that there is a correct balance between the time spent working from home, individually and in groups. We try to encourage personal meetings between teams, between transversal functions, so we set a policy of how many times the teams have to meet, frequencies, etc.
Also we try to establish team building dynamics. For example, we recently held what we call “Mano games”, a kind of Olympics day, where 1,000 employees gathered in Paris. It was an amazing, fun day. So, it has been a challenge to also establish these dynamics: Don’t let people stop being productive, but don’t miss these face-to-face meetings either.
Another challenge we have faced, and I think the company has solved it very well, is to equip the home of people who decided to work online: we have provided them with a free credit to have a table and a screen. We have teamed up with a partner that offers second-hand products.
I believe that we are pioneers in having a totally flexible policyfor a company that is present in several countries and this policy demonstrates a significant investment in employees, which has its return, since it is proven that efficiency is greater when working from home, the motivation of the employee is also greater.
23:47 How much catalog is there on the ManoMano.es website?
In total we have a catalog of 16 million products on all our platforms. We have 50 million visits per month, seven million active customers and we have 4,000 sellers on our platforms.
The launch of the logistics center in Tarragona is a service that we provide to our sellers, which we call “Mano fulfillment”. The seller can decide to use this service or a part of it. We can take care of everything from stock to shipping and after-sales service, such as claims, returns, etc. In addition, we wanted to offer the best delivery times to the end customer.
25:53 How much does it cost to sell in ManoMano?
I cannot share the commission with you, because it is not a standard commission. We have a very varied catalogue, very different families and the commissions depend directly on the family.
We work with commission and there are also other additional paid services like Mano fulfillment, marketing investments, platform, so what they call take rate is also different for the families and for each one of the sellers.
27:59 What is the average basket on the web?
The average basket also depends on the family, hardware is not the same as furniture. But I can tell you that, both in average ticket as in conversion ratios, we are above of what is published in the studies for Spain.
As additional data, there are differences in the average basket and in the conversion between countries in northern and southern Europe in line with the behavior of general eCommerce and this is one more sign that we have yet to develop the maturity of eCommerce in Spain.
33:15 What characteristic differentiates the Spanish DIY consumer from our European neighbours?
DIY or gardening is not a hobby that has been going on for years or centuries in Spain. It is a fairly recent hobby, which began to develop in the early 2000s, while in other countries such as Germany it is not something historical. Speaking of the Spanish consumer, it is a profile of a man, over 40 years old, with a family and a mixture of rural housing and housing in the city.
In addition, there are certain structural characteristics in our country that allow us to be different:
- The first, Spain is one of the countries in Europe, where the highest percentage of the population has its own homewhich means that they are willing to spend a little bit.
- Second, homes are smaller in relation to our European neighbours. We live more in small apartments than in houses with large gardens, as in France, the United Kingdom or Germany.
- Finally, the average age of houses in Spain is very high, over 45 years and are not energy efficient. In other countries, there are goals of achieving solar panel installations in homes or achieving a certain energy certification.
40:39 Within the online, a type of action that surprised for good and one that surprised for bad?
I can tell you about the user experience within our platform. We have done simple tests that have had an impact, For example, changing the image of the Mano Advisor can encourage conversion. Putting a more personalized photograph and not like the typical professional dressed as a professional had a better conversion rate.
We play with many A/B tests on our own page, to learn things that you may think do not have much impact but are basic, but have an impact on conversion. We are testing a lot with coupons, which coupons work best and not only for price, but for visuals.
We prioritize the launch of the app in Spain, because Spain is a mobile country and a large percentage of eCommerce users buy via mobile. The application has also given us many tests, what is the best experience we can give, what is the best way to communicate, the intensity of our commercial communications.
We launched the B2B app in October last year and has exceeded expectations, both in downloads and billing. In fact, it goes above France.
48:06 Curious, what was your best-selling product in 2021?
The best sellers last year and the previous year were swimming pools, outdoor furniture and outdoor furniture sets. Fun fact, E.Spain is the European country, after Malta, with the highest number of second holiday properties, which is why I think we have spent these two years equipping ourselves to enjoy the holidays. All indicators say that it will be heading towards interior decorations.
48:46 To finish, what challenges do you have in ManoMano for 2022/2023?
The first challenge we set ourselves is more internal, Hiring of technical profiles. Secondly, to navigate this uncertain context, because it is difficult to make forecasts when you do not know very well what is going to happen with prices, raw materials, transport crises, etc.
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