Magazine Luiza strengthens virtual mall

São Paulo – the Magazine Luiza is strengthening your virtual mall. The marketplace has grown so much that about 87 in each 100 products available in retail Web site are no longer operated by her, but by third parties.
The company opened your electronic trade to other companies in early 2016. The initiative is similar to the business model of the free market or the American eBay.
Since then, more than 80 partners such as Disney, Whirpool, Ambev and Havan began to sell their products from this channel and more than 500 sellers are in line to get into the platform.
The marketplace already has 230,000 different items for sale. Of these, only 30000 are sold at Magazine Luiza and 200,000 by partners. This number refers to the different items available for sale and not sales volume, in fact.
"In terms of sales, the slice is still small, but will grow with time," said Frederico Trajano, President of the company, in an interview with Exame.com.
However, the concern of Trajan is not in increasing sales. For now, "the focus is to build a robust and quality platform, which the seller like and a good shopping experience for the customer," he said.
A large part of the investments of the company this year will be on technologies such as marketplace platform. According to the President, the investment in 2017 will be higher than last year, which amounted to 124 million R$, but he didn''t need the value.
Then, with a platform, it will be easier to climb the sales level, said the President.
"There is no external limitation to the marketplace," said he, the analysts. "The escalation is accelerated and organic and is a fully market to be explored".
One of the surprises in the new deal is that traditional vendors of the company entered the marketplace to sell directly to consumers, without going through the retailer stocks. "They found a way to sell products that the Magazine did not operate because they have low demand or seasonal sales," said Tarle.
Digital sales
The marketplace is within the company''s e-commerce sector, which is the fastest-growing division. In the last quarter, the growth rate was 41.4% compared to the same period last year.
Online sales account for 26.3% of the total turnover of the network.
The main reason for the rapid growth of e-commerce is the integration with the structure of 800 physical stores across Brazil, using the same 9 distribution centers of the company.
In addition, the client has the option to buy the site or application and remove the store without paying for shipping, with out the store. So, a truck that will take products to the store also carries the item purchased over the internet, which reduces logistics costs.
While, on the one hand it out Shop helps increase sales of e-commerce and decrease the costs of this operation, the collection of freight and mounting rate helped increase the margin and, therefore, profits.
To boost e-commerce, the company invested heavily in the development of an application, in which it is possible to complete a purchase in just 16 seconds, according to the company.
The scanning wave also reached at physical stores. All sellers offer smartphones to check details on the product, check stock and finalize the sale. The Magazine Luiza also began to install wi-fi in their stores.
There is still room for the growth of electronic commerce within the company, says the President.
"The e-commerce represents only 3% of all retailers in Brazil and worldwide we see this increasing participation. With increased use of smartphones and more people with access to broadband and mobile telephony, online sales trend is irreversible, "he said, in an interview with EXAME.com.
For 2017, Frederico Trajano predicts a year of growth and consumption. "There''s no way be better than not 2017 2016", he declared in a conference call with analysts.
The company, which last year reached 800 stores, plans to intensify the opening of new units.