Macaronesia: learning, errors and success

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Macaronesia Suncare orders Sitelicon Ecommerce Services to develop the online business in the distribution of its products from Aloe Vera Canario, Tabaiba Aloe.

Phase 0 (last quarter of 2014)

Objective

Before starting a strategic development phase of sales and traffic, it is necessary to have an online product sales site. Sitelicon Ecommerce Services is responsible for developing a custom online shop under the domain of www.macaronesiasuncarese.com.

Development

A project of our product Kunuh.com is developed specific to Macaronesia. It is developed a store in four languages, with international sale focused in Europe, in 28 countries specifically and payments through bank card, Paypal and bank transfer.

Outcome

Since December 2014 the domain www.macaronesiasuncare.com is operational with the products of Tabaiba Aloe available for international sale.

What did we learn?

For now the learning process here was limited. We still have no real behavior with real users so at this point we continue to develop on the initial approaches.

Phase 1 (first 10 months of 2015)

Objective

The first strategic objective we have once we develop an online point of sale is to demonstrate the project’s value hypothesis; the product of Tabaiba Aloe is desired by some users, they want to buy it and they actually buy it in the prices and conditions offered. It seems obvious but the reality is that beyond any study or market analysis, in Sitelicon Ecommerce Services we always defend the need to show that the product is actually sold even in small quantities.

Development

To demonstrate this hypothesis we need to bring quality traffic to the web. We know that the product has an interest in its offline sale, both national and international. But we do not yet have the correct segmentation, nor a database of users to contact nor an important budget.

We therefore propose an initial strategy based on the development of very concrete and targeted actions on social networks, especially on Facebook although it is also working on Twitter. And a first Google AdWords campaign with a very controlled investment.

Outcome

First sales are generated, with positive result and good experience from users. We start having a database of registered users and Facebook followers. But above all we have an online store that already has validated the value hypothesis (the product interests users, want to buy it and want to consume it in the conditions and prices offered) as well as the initial growth hypothesis (small actions are generating growth in sales, by the hand of its own natural positioning and inertia).

What did we learn?

Very specific Facebook actions with different segmentations and very low budgets were generating good results.

Google Adwords was not working as we initially wanted. We came in contact with our team assigned to Sitelicon within Google Partners to review the account and help us in the strategic approach.

We had still small sales so we could draw a lot of conclusions, but we didn’t have a clear foreign sales differential as we expected.

We needed to increase traffic with a still very small investment as there was no extra investment capacity.

Phase 2 (October 2015 to December 2016)

Objective

We plan to develop sales and maintain a growth situation with a very controlled budget. The strategy is based on multiple tests of possible actions of traffic capture and opening of new sales points, so that we can analyse those actions and those points of sale of the highest interest and thus propose new more focused phases.

Development

Two-plane actions are being developed, on the one hand actions to increase the traffic on the Macaronesiasuncares.com. In particular:

Google Adwords Campaign

Development of Facebook-focused social networks

High in Shopalike

High in LeGuide group: Mercamania, Ciao, Pikingo, Dooyoo

High in Solostocks

High in Shopmania

Development of a permanent email marketing campaign, with two monthly shipments to two segmentations, one national and the other international in English.

On the other hand, new online sales points are developed for the product.

Amazon EU5 account opening to put the products on sale.

Opening of eBay Spain account.

Development of a new web only for the product brand with online sale, tabaibaaloe.com

Opening of Rakuten Spain (until closed)

Results

The sales of the products are increasing globally. Especially in Amazon. The new online store sells the same as the current store.

It grows by 48% in the 2016 billing compared to 2015. And in increase, the differential growth is 67%.

We have two online shops for sale, Amazon EU5 open and with permissions in special beauty categories. We also have the brand Tabaiba and Tabaibaaloe registered in the Amazon brand register and we have performed a first FBA experiment (Amazon logistics) with very positive data. Finally we have opinions and stars as vendors, very positive.

We are also open in eBay and other comparators and aggregators.

What did we learn?

That shipping costs are the main rejection of the purchase and we must lower them.

Amazon has an undeveloped growth potential that we should focus on, especially with its FBA logistics management.

Germany is the main sales market.

We have no budget to continue with Google Adwords until we get to increase sales and increase profit percentage.

Phase 3 (current phase, proposed from January 2017 to January 2018)

Objective

At the end of 2016, it is proposed to start a new phase of business development and rethink the growth strategy based on what is learned.

In this new development phase, we are planning to increase the growth trend we have so far based on the strong pillars of learning that we have with the project. We are also planning to increase the percentage of final benefit that is being achieved from the project and to be able to increase the investment in marketing on our own invoicing without the need for extra investment.

Development

Sent the whole product stock to Amazon through its FBA logistics management service which allows us to reduce delivery costs and times. We reduce the logistical cost four times and move from four days of delivery to about 24 - 48 hours. In addition to showing products like Amazon Prime.

Facebook Ads campaign development focused especially on Germany.

Development of email marketing campaign with three segmentations, national, another for Germanophone countries (the main target customer) and another international in English.

We are currently developing… we need to develop eBay throughout Europe, open Amazon USA and Amazon Japan, continue to develop social media campaigns, start with Instagram, develop email marketing by countries… and everything we are developing and learning in the day to day.

Where are we now?

The following chart shows where we are right now. Proud at Sitelicon Ecommerce Services to be achieving after so many months of work, effort and learning the much-desired growth curve.

Published in Magazine number 12 of Ecommerce Observatory