On this week’s show We are going to chat with David Morales, the director of the marketplace for and his next big project: the Unilae multi-category marketplace.
We are going to discover how this entire line of business has evolved within PcComponentes, which won the award, and find out more about its plans to launch this new website. Without a doubt, a project that will weigh heavily on the ecommerce ecosystem in 2022.
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Interview David Morales (PcComponentes)
7:30 When was the marketplace launched at PcComponentes?
PcComponentes was born in 2005 as a traditional player that has grown fantastically throughout its history and with two physical stores. We launched a marketplace at the end of 2018, in 2019 it is consolidated, 2020 continues to grow with 58 million in business volume and in 2021 we celebrate 3 years of marketplace. We have closed the year at 81.5 million in business volume.
In 2020 the marketplace closed at around 7% compared to ecommerce and this 2021 we will close at 15%. When that percentage is reached, you have to start making more strategic decisions, it is becoming something very powerful in terms of results, with weight in the organization chart. It currently provides great value to PcComponentes In addition to helping the longtail, it now has a very relevant weight.
12:30 What is Unilae?
A marketplace. At PcComponentes we have been growing at double digits since the last few years with some consistency and we are growing because more and more people know us. We know the main growth paths for the coming years: the diversification of the catalogue. It is increasingly difficult to grow in market share because there are many competitors and we are niche sellers.we compete with some of the largest generalists in the world but we have always been a very specialized seller.
Another point is internationalization. Both axes of growth have a main problem, which is naming, PcComponentes sounds technological, people deduce that they can only buy computers and computer components, assuming a brake today. Calling you PcComponentes in other countries was also going to be a problem. We want to find a solution and add more categories so we built Unilae.
Remains the leading technology and electronics specialist with major categories. Unilae was born to sell this and everything else, some examples of categories are: sports, garden, DIY, decoration, cosmetics… Little by little the catalog will be expanded.
Unilae was born with the aim of satisfying two types of customers: PcComponentes customers with other consumption needs and customers that we have not yet been able to capture. We have been working for a long time and it is practically ready and in the next few days we will launch it in a selection of PcComponentes clients.
We have a great technology team and adapting the multichannel platform is a great challenge that they have been able to overcome. We can contribute in terms of catalog and operations, being a marketplace we can accelerate intensity. It’s a great project and let’s see how it turns out.
24:40 You will buy products or let third parties sell on your platform, right?
In the beginning, the natural model is that it be the opposite of that of PcComponentes, that the marketplace weighs a lot. The smartest way to do it, since we are facing categories that we have never worked on before, is not committing to buy a stock.
The marketplace model that we have is super integrated into the business model and the customer journey, there should be no difference in the purchase process. The end customer should have all the peace of mind of buying from PcComponentes regardless of the product, the security is that we are behind it. It doesn’t matter who sold it to you, if you have a problem we guarantee solutions.
29:00 It is intended for internationalization. Are the initial tests going to be only in Spain?
The launch will be in Spain, because the notary that we have here helps us to have a slightly simpler positioning supported by that backup that PcComponentes gives us. When we are mature enough, we have the ambition to open up internationally, there are no dates because we will depend on whether we are mature enough.
We don’t even have the selected countries. The first ones you think of are the big 3: Italy and Germany. But they are the 3 most competitive countries too, it is expensive and complicated to make room. Portugal is a country that we really like.
32:50 How is the relationship between ecommerce and marketplace? At first it is difficult to differentiate.
It puts it on the product sheet. The first option that will appear is the product that is best for the user, with an algorithm that determines the price, delivery time, ratings, etc. We do it fairly, transparently, if there is a seller who has a better option than ours, he will sell over us or beat us.
They feed back intelligently, If we see that there is someone more competitive than us in a type of product, we want the customer to buy that product.. For example, someone who has great offers should come out of first options.
39:25 How do you choose vendors?
Us We closed the year with less than 300 vendors, which is few for such a significant volume of business. But at PcComponentes they only sell the best. That goes through a monitoring of quality controls.
You may have a lot of stock or the best products, but if you don’t send them on time or are slow to respond or anything that doesn’t respect the quality of PcComponentes you won’t sell with us. We have a manual process of choosing vendors. Anyone who is good enough can sell with us. It is not restricted to brands or sellers, we want you to do your job well.
The number one obsession is to honestly make the customer happy.. We prefer to lose money for the . We could sell Play Station 5 but they are at exorbitant prices taking advantage of the scarcity of the market.
Any seller who wants to sell on our marketplace can go to our website where there is an icon that says “marketplace”, there they can fill out a form. Commissions range between 5-12% and a monthly maintenance fee of €39.99. In exchange, we offer a close relationship, more than 90% of the sellers are Spanish SMEs, in Unilae it would be free, you will only have the commission for the sale.
45:30 And in Unilae how can they sell?
Yes there are a potential seller who is listening to us, can do so through the PcComponentes marketplace, or by writing to our mail ornilae@pccomponentes.complus our team is actively looking for potential sellers.
The goal is tostart with 25-50 vendors in each new vertical, this will grow as it evolvesbut we want it to be the minimum to have a quality catalogue.
49:20 At the Ecommerce Awards 2021 you won the award for best marketplace, one of the new categories of 2021, standing out from brands as powerful as Promofarma and Aliexpress. What are the keys to becoming the best marketplace in Spain?
I don’t know the keys I know what we do at PcComponentes and it goes along the line of obsession with satisfying the customer and making the seller happy. And that the seller is happy with us. They are our two signs of identity.
The bottom line is that there is no difference between retail and marketplace, guaranteeing that your shopping experience is the same and identical no matter what you buy. Knowing that you are not going to have problems and that you are going to be fine, solving anything. We have a very hard job behind us in terms of processes, I don’t understand any other way to have a marketplace.
Competing against Aliexpress and Promofarma, two powerful marketplaces, make us feel more proud of this award.
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