Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Eugene Laney, Head of International Trade Affairs at DHL Express (Part 1)

E-Commerce is a global phenomenon today, and over the next decade and more, it will become more so. Eugene talks about the trend from the perspective of one of the top logistics vendors.

Sramana Mitra: Welcome to the Thought Leaders in E-Commerce series. Why don’t you introduce yourself to our audience and tell us what you’re working on. We’ll take it from there.

Eugene Laney: I’m the Head of International Trade Affairs for DHL Express here in the US. I have two responsibilities. One is to represent DHL Express here in Washington DC before Congress as well as US embassies. The second part of my role is export promotion where I work with our sales, marketing, and media as well as operations team to develop products and services to help SMBs as well as large corporations to >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Suchit Bachalli, CEO of Unilog (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The other interesting slice of the market view that you’ve provided is this whole world of people who are not doing e-commerce. They’re slow adopters that you’re now bringing fresh onto the Internet. That’s a very interesting world. Given that you’re operating in a territory that is a lot more behind than where a lot of the early adopter market is, what other white space areas do you see in your orbit where you would point entrepreneurs who are starting today to look at providing solutions?

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Suchit Bachalli, CEO of Unilog (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: As your primary playing ground, right?

Suchit Bachalli: Right. One of our earlier adopters Mayer Electric are based out of Birmingham, Alabama. I think they’re $800 million in revenue. They just had a regular website. There was no commerce and no way to buy anything online. Today, they have the full commerce solution. They have a native mobile app. Interestingly, one of the things they do is tool crib management on site. They use our application. Boeing would just use our mobile app to scan your PC codes and do fulfillment purchasing. Refreshments would be ordered through the mobile app.

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Suchit Bachalli, CEO of Unilog (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: We’re with you. One thing you’ll find is that our audience is a sophisticated audience. We know the space. I got your point that you are trying to provide something that is more comprehensive to the mid-market that can give a lot of the functionalities that is available in the higher-end of the market at a fraction of the cost. My question is, given that is your positioning, are you telling me that there is no other player in that market? That’s hard to believe.

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Suchit Bachalli, CEO of Unilog (Part 2)

Suchit Bachalli: If you look at Grainger or Staples, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars in building that ecosystem. That ecosystem is built brick by brick, block by block with a wide variety of software products. Now, let’s look at the SMB space, say someone who has $600 million in revenue. They’re a B2B wholesale distribution company and the type of company you’ve never heard of because their idea of marketing is a barbecue Sunday. These are companies that have $600 million in revenue and 40 locations nationwide. They have city counters where you can buy anything from valves to gaskets to electrical wiring. They sell to other businesses.

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Suchit Bachalli, CEO of Unilog (Part 1)

Suchit has bootstrapped a very interesting e-commerce platform company using services that today caters to the B2B e-commerce needs of backwater industrial customers. It’s a fascinating window in to a world we don’t hear much about.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with introducing our audience to Unilog. What do you do? What trends do you align with?

Suchit Bachalli: I’ll start by talking a little bit about the Unilog journey and how we’ve come to be where we are. I think it sets the stage for where we think we’re going. Unilog is a 16-year-old company. For the first 13 years of our life, we were a knowledge process outsourcing outfit out of Bangalore. >>>

Building a Subscription E-Commerce Business from Switzerland: Samy Liechti, CEO of Blacksocks (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Is anything else interesting in your story? I find it fascinating. It’s great that you did this from Switzerland. It’s a very interesting angle that you figured out very early on in the history of the Internet. It’s wonderful to see that.

Samy Liechti: I think I have a message to all new and future entrepreneurs. I saw so many very nice detailed business plans. I think the most important thing is to start a business. The second message is it will be hard, but it’s worth it.

Sramana Mitra: You have chosen to bootstrap this company right? Right now, you’re at what level of revenue? >>>

Building a Subscription E-Commerce Business from Switzerland: Samy Liechti, CEO of Blacksocks (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In Switzerland, how do you market for your kind of offering? How much could you grow in Switzerland?

Samy Liechti: In the socks segment, we now have 20% market share. With 20% market share, we can grow up to 30% to 35%, but we will never dominate the whole market. We started about two years ago to invest more marketing money outside our country. It seems to be working.

Sramana Mitra: Now that you’re investing outside of Switzerland, in terms of geographies, where are you putting your marketing dollars? >>>