How did Black Friday evolved in Romania in recent years and what do you think is the role of eMAG in the development of this phenomenon?
I brought Black Friday to Romania in 2011, at a time when online trade was still at an incipient level, and about online payment was not much talked about.From the beginning, the role of the event was to show customers the benefits of online trade and the diversity of the offer-that you can buy any online, not just electro-IT products.In addition, we wanted to be an opportunity to bring customers who make the first online order and stay here because I understand that I can save time and money.
The event increased from year to year and, with it, trained the entire market growth by attracting a larger number of online customers and traders from more diverse sectors.If in the first year we start from a zero level of notoriety, today more than 9 out of 10 Romanians know what Black Friday is, associates the main event with eCommerce and over half intends to buy something.About 65% of potential buyers intend to buy online, according to a recent study by Kantar Romania.
Black Friday is a strength tour of this approach, it is the day when we maximum our technological and logistics capacity.But Black Friday is also a time when we get very close to each other in the organization, it also pretends a work of collaboration in both the organization and with our partners, either suppliers, or over 27.000 Marketplace seller contributing to this shopping festival.
How did you feel the impact of the pandemic, the container crisis and semiconductor in the supply of Black Friday products in 2021?
An event like Black Friday is preparing long before and we have a long experience and strategic relationships with suppliers, which has helped us in the current context..I bought the stocks of goods before the current situation so we will also have very good prices in the event.Also, the investments we have made in recent years in the extension of warehouses that total over 250 have also helped us.000 square meters, so we had where to keep additional stocks for the shopping season.
Unlike other years, we have planned the shopping season much earlier and we are prepared for the growing demand.In addition, we rely on traders selling on eMAG Marketplace and who will come with their own offers.
Taking into account all these obstacles when you started the supply preparations?
We do not end a Black Friday that we are starting to get ready for the next one, so I would say that about a year ago.
What expectations do you have in comparison with 2020 and what products you get out of the ordinary?
We have prepared 4.5 million products and discounts of 330 million lei.We expect orders of about 615 million lei, up by almost 30 million compared to the previous year.
As every year, we have many interesting products, both for those who are looking for surprises and for those who seek investments.From the category of special products I would list over 47.000 nights accommodation in Romania and outside the country, over 80.000 liters of fuel and over 5.000 vouchers for air tickets, reduced by 50% or over 27.000 kilograms of pork, but also the only bottle in Romania by Single Malt Talisker 41 years old at the price of 13.999 lei or the package of 12 Jameson bottles with Ciubăr at the price of 4.999 lei.There are no lack of gold coins and bullion, luxury watches and jewelry or author.
Are you ready for a large volume of orders and how do you think you will cover the delivery part?What role does street lockers play in covering?
We have goods stored on an area four times as much as the People's House, sufficient for any customer who follows products of long use or who simply wants to discover something at a good price or to give someone a holiday gift..
Photo emag
And the infrastructure is very well developed this year, our Easybox network doubled from last year to 2.000 units, where I can pick up the products at any time of day and night.In addition, they can opt to pick up the order from one of the 21 eMAG showrooms, for courier delivery or they can pick up from the post offices.
Last year did you advance an accurate delivery date for BF orders, what delivery time do you target for 2021?
We intend to deliver all the orders until November 26, so that our customers will enjoy the holidays..
Will Black Friday buyers will receive offers from Marketplace partners?If so, how will they be promoted, just like eMAG or separately?
The 4.5 million products come from both eMAG and Sellerii in Marketplace who have prepared very good offers for this day.All products will be displayed and promoted together on the site and in the application, and Black Friday discounts will be marked in a unitary way.
We are in 2021, and if you read the comments of the articles related to Black Friday you will notice that there are many who question the honesty of the discounts.Are Black Friday discounts for good?
The transparent price is one of the main benefits in online trade: it is very simple to follow the evolution over time and to compare various offers in the market, so that you make the right choice.Customers know very clearly how much the favorite product cost, how now, what economy can I do and, last but not, when they reach them.We organize Black Friday one day and we are preparing a year before with the partners and only so we are able to offer customers the products they want at affordable prices.For example, last year almost 90% of Black Friday sales made by us were at the lowest price of 2020.
How is it explained that some products are exhausted in a few tens of seconds?
We have prepared with sufficient stock partners with a large number of products, we are talking about hundreds or thousands of units in a single product.However, stocks are limited and cannot satisfy all requests from a single landmark.At the beginning of the event there are hundreds of thousands of customers who enter the same time, which is why we recommend customers to install their eMAG application to quickly access the offer, to save your favorite card and easybox, to add to favorites the products they follow-ifThese are found in the Black Friday offer will be able to buy instant.
For the first time, this year Genius customers will receive a notification at the start of the event, so there is still time for customers to make a free account for three months to try this service.
Vice President Emag, Stejara Pircan. Photo emag
What changes did you make in the site infrastructure in order not to have problems when people are cramming?
11 years ago, when eMAG brought the Black Friday concept to Romania, there were problems because no one then anticipated the huge interest in the event.But since then, year after year I have invested in the IT infrastructure: only this year the investments amount to 4.5 million euros in technology, of which 2.3 million euros went to the purchase of new servers.
Which market in Europe or the world can be an example for Romania and what outside store can be an example of an inspiration for eMAG?
We are constantly looking at the markets where Ecommerce has a significant weight from the West and Asia, in countries such as India or China.We especially analyze the evolutions of companies related to scaling and distribution by large geographical regions, but everything we build locally, we do it through our own research, with the Romanian teams and with Romanian technology..
In the case of certain services, customers in Romania benefit from even better standards than in the western countries, and an example would be the standard delivery, which happens the next day, and in the west you can wait up to 5 days.
But we still have to develop a lot on the offer side.There are products and categories that are still difficult or not found in Romania and this can be an opportunity to open new product niches.