Mehdi Arefi said at the “Next Generation of FMCG Companies” meeting at the Iran TechSummit event: “Adding solutions such as online sales to sales channels will ensure the survival of small and medium businesses.”
According to Ideaagency, the meeting of the next generation of FMCG companies was held with the presence of Pouya Rastgar, CEO of Snapp Supermarket, Mehdi Etemadi, Executive Director of Okala, Mehdi Arefi, CEO of Yaran Daryan Chain Stores and Shahriar Dadgar, Executive Director of Doosheh Dairy at the Iran TechSummit event.
Online sales help small and medium businesses survive
Mehdi Arefi, CEO of Yaran Daryan, explained the importance of the presence of platforms in expanding and enriching the fast-moving goods market, and said: “Our research shows that from 2014 to today, more than 17,000 supermarkets have been closed. If we remove this statistic, 7,000 supermarkets have ended their work due to sales and customer attraction problems.
Today, our online sales statistics show that an average of 25% of our supermarket sales are on Snapp, and this number is really impressive for a small and medium-sized business that can sustain that business. Currently, 160 of our branches are operating in Snapp, and daily more than 15,000 online orders are registered for us from this place. Our goal is to increase this number to 600 supermarkets and 70,000 orders in one day.”
Arefi, in response to the question why, despite having an independent software for online sales, Yaran Daryan decided to go towards selling on marketplace platforms, said: “In 2015, we introduced the Dokan software to the market together with RoccoLand, which sold did our own exclusive online; But after a year or two, we came to the conclusion that the costs of shipping, logistics and support could affect this part of our business and we should not reinvent the wheel.
When there are specialized platforms that do this with more focus; The smarter way is to leave our online sales department to them and today we are going through very good days in interaction with Snapp. Along with more sales experience, the use of warehousing and accounting software such as Dakhl, instant access to sales data, and the possibility of interacting with a larger number of users are the advantages that being in this marketplace gives us.
Logistics, shipping time and costs, profit margin and process smartness; The most important challenges of online sales
In the continuation of this panel, Pouya Rastgar described the most important challenges for an online platform for selling supermarket goods as follows: “The view that may exist from the outside is that the platform only provides a simple tool for online ordering and the rest of the work is automated. It goes on and there is no special challenge. This is probably the reason why after Corona, Q-Commerce became an attractive industry for investment. But this industry has big challenges like logistics costs, shipping time, low profit margin and process smartness.
The day we started our cooperation with Hyperstar, it took almost 1 hour to process a shopping cart with 10 to 11 types of products, and today, with the help of artificial intelligence, we have reached solutions that complete 5 to 6 orders within half an hour. »
Referring to the FMCG industry’s favor with traditional methods of advertising, Rastgar said: “If we consider the current market of fast-moving goods of $23B, we can say that 8% of this budget is spent on sales and marketing channels. The main part of this budget is spent on traditional channels and only about $96M of it is spent on modern and digital channels.
In the end, something close to $9.5M from this market is allocated to advertising on the three main Q-Commerce platforms. While we can create a lot of potential in these platforms for direct and direct communication between brands and consumers, and currently, a large amount of advertising opportunities and situations are being ignored in Q-Commerce.
With more patience and cooperation, traditional businesses can be receptive to technology
Shahriar Dadgar, the executive director of Doosheh dairy products, said about the challenges of introducing technology into traditional businesses: “In traditional businesses like ours, the most important issue is the organization’s resistance to technology. The average age of our employees in the senior management level is over 45 years old, which is much lower for technology-oriented companies.
Technology is an accelerating factor for employees and in tech companies, and for us it is an anxiety-inducing factor; But we have learned to be with the employees for the spread of technology in the organization and to understand their concern about the rapid changes in technology and to give them the opportunity to update their knowledge at the same time as the changes in technology. This work requires more patience and companionship; But it is definitely possible.”
Online sales have brought the supply chain one step closer to the user
Okala’s Executive Director, Mehdi Etemadi, while explaining the process of Okala’s developments over time, said: “In the process of our development and growth, we paid special attention to our competitive advantages and distinctions, and from the platform that was available to us due to our presence in Golrang Industrial Group, We took advantage. The day we decided to expand the market because of Corona, our retail sales were going on in more than 650 cities and we had an efficient supply chain.
In the first step, we brought the supply chain one step closer to the customer by adding online sales. The next important step was to add supermarkets except Ofogh Kourosh, and today we have provided the possibility of online supermarket sales in almost 250 cities. In fact, our most important task was to focus on competitive advantages and take steps based on them.
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