Borders? What Borders? Cross-Border Simplified – Zina Sili & Victoria Seymour-Stathopoulou, Skroutz

This talk introduces Scrooge, a leading e-commerce platform in Greece that has evolved from a price comparison site to a comprehensive marketplace over the past 20 years. The speakers, Victoria and Zena, discuss Scrooge's recent strategies for simplifying the shopping experience, including acquiring logistics and warehousing capabilities to manage the end-to-end user journey. They highlight the international expansion into countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Cyprus, and emphasize the growth of their international seller base, which has seen significant year-over-year growth. The speakers also outline the multi-faceted support provided to sellers, including a dedicated success manager and an educational hub, to ensure a seamless integration into their platform. Additionally, they touch on the importance of localization in customer service and payment processes to better serve diverse markets.

We're we're so excited to be part of today's uh presentations. Um it's our third year actually as a company joining the Balcon Summit and this year round the energy is amazing, the diversity of speakers and also the networking opportunity. Um just so that you know we also have our stand right behind. So do come and say hi to us afterwards. uh we'd love to meet you as

well. Um today's presentation will focus on how at Scrooge over the past 20 years we've simplified shopping for our users and most recently across border. So my name as a bit of an introduction I'm Victoria I head the strategy and operations department at Scrooge and essentially we look after the growth and the operations of our partners brands and sellers. and my name is Zena Sely. As it

was mentioned previously, I'm in charge of the international seller base and essentially helping the international sellers expand through Scrooge to new markets. So, we actually have a question that we like to make every year and we want to see your uh hand raised. How many of you know Scrooge Demetrius? That's not fair. Perfect. So, it's really nice seeing some hands this year. For those who may not

know us, we are the leading incommerce player in Greece, which translates to 1 billion uh GMV generated per year in euros uh aka 35%age of the total e-commerce GMV in Greece. Uh what's interesting to mention here is that Scrooge actually original started as a price comparison platform and transformed to a comprehensive marketplace over the years. Now what's unique about Scrooge is um that it owns the end

to end user journey. So what we've focused on in the past I'd say 5 years is building an infrastructure that allows us to own the discovery the payment process but also the last mile logistics. So starting in 2021 we acquired Scrooge last mile which is one of the largest um logistics providers in Greece and also we have a very large locker base system. So, just out of

curiosity, how many lockers do you think our logistic company has in the Greek market? It's in the thousands. Just a bulk number. 5,000. 4,000 actually. So, you're very close. And the majority of these lockers are of course surrounded in the major cities of the Greek market. Um, and then what we decided to do is acquire our own electronic payment company, Every Pay. And so through every pay,

it gives us the ability to own and to manage all the digital payment methods that we can support through our platform. We then decided to go into the warehousing space. So in 2022, we acquired our own warehouses and essentially by the end of 2025, we want 20% of our shipments to be transacted um through our warehousing services. And our most recent baby is that of international expansion.

Over the past year and a half, we've really focused on expanding internationally, predominantly with our core countries being Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Cyprus. And um we ship to obviously 27 European countries, but we also open the doors to many international sellers to sell in Greece, which is our dominant market at the moment. So, let's just all agree that e-commerce never stands still, right? Tech, logistics, customer support,

customer experience, they all shift fast. Uh, Scroo's mission is to simplify all of these changes and make it quite easier for you to also adapt. Actually, we learned throughout our 20 years uh journey to not only embrace change but to make it part of our DNA and provide the best possible experience for all. We don't want you to chase new markets. We bring new markets to you,

right? We are constantly growing your audience. either it's in Greece, in Bulgaria, in Romania and beyond. And how do we do that? We actually started about two years ago with our international seller base. We currently have about 500 to 600 international active sellers based in Bulgaria, Romania, many of them are here today as well, Cyprus and many more countries. Uh Romania and Poland and Bulgaria is the

main countries of uh which the sellers are located. We also um what we didn't mention previously is that we are a third party marketplace which means that the international sellers are competing only with other sellers and the other sellers are actually our GR or Greek sellers which is about 8,000 in number. What is quite important to mention is that from our existing international seller base, we already

have noticed that they have a 120%age year-over-year growth on scruts coming from the international seller base. Um, and they also increased the contribution to the total GMV of scruts by 5%age. Uh when it comes to users, what it's quite important to mention is that we have more than six million visitor each uh visitors each for the last six months in Greece. Many of them are also international

users. We are expanding our international user base as well. And let's say our premium users are plus users which are more than 300 in number but they contribute to 50%age of the total GMV of screws. So it's quite impressive and it's quite important to have access to to them. 300,000 by the way. Yeah. Sorry. Um but yeah, so essentially what we don't want you to do is

to burn your budget on building the infrastructure yourself. So really what we focused on is building a seamless experience so that once you join our platform you can get started pretty smoothly. And so what this means is that when it comes to our operating models, an international seller has three options. The first one is our core marketplace. So this is what we support in the Greek market.

Um, essentially Scrooge takes on the end-to-end logistics and shipping. So you don't have to worry about things like return costs or buyers protection. You also get access to our plus network of users. um but also to our locker based system which at the moment is incredibly popular as I can imagine it is in your region as well in Greece. The second one is um fulfilled by merchant.

A lot of international sellers because they do have their own infrastructure they will opt to do the last mile themselves. So when they join Scrooge essentially they will either use their own network or they can um partner up with our providers which are Yanigi, DBL, DHL and so on so forth. All the major ones we currently support and then the third one is fulfilled by Scrooge that

is our own warehousing facilities. So what you would have to do is bring in bulk your products to our warehouses in Athens and then essentially Scrooge takes on all the end-to-end handling. So it does the storage and the security, the return management, um the packaging, but it also helps unlock a 100% fulfillment rate because Scrooge takes on all the operations. It also gives you a higher chance

of winning the buy box opportunity, i.e. generating more sales on our platform. Um, and it also of course gives you access, as we mentioned, to lockers, but same day delivery as well, which is incredibly popular as well in Greece. Now, we understand that a lot of sellers also will sell on other marketplaces. So, what we've done when we decided to expand internationally is to work with the

most popular, let's say, integrators in the region. So we've partnered up with Bass and with Easy Sales who are also te today here with us. And of course for sellers that choose the fulfilled by merchant option, we also have an integration with After Ship which allows them to be able to track safely all the tracking codes of their shipments through us. And last but not least, as

we mentioned, when it comes to payments, we have our own inst financial institution. So we're constantly trying to innovate on this front. So users will tend to pay predominantly with debit and credit card, but they also have the option of cash on delivery, which at the moment in Greece at least is about 20% of our users will go through cash on delivery. Um, social pay such as

Google and Apple. Um, but also we have our own method. So obviously through Scrooge coins, we have our own wallet and so on so forth. We also don't want you to rebuild brand trust from scratch. Scrooge handles that and increases the local credibility by investing on brand awareness through various channels. So when it comes to Scrooge, we're the fourth largest website at the moment after and the

most visited actually after Google, Facebook uh and YouTube. And the reason we've achieved that is first and foremost we tapped into the Greek market about 20 years ago when there was no other redirection and marketplace option available. So it's taken us a long time to build that momentum. But beyond this if we look at it as a funnel when it comes to brand awareness what we try

to do is make noise but only where it matters the most. So either through um brand campaigns, social media buzz, influencer collaboration, which we've become a lot more active the past few years. Um but also through PR essentially we have built a brand where users can actually recognize us anywhere you go in our core markets. People will recognize the word Scrooge. They trust us, but they can

also very easily explore all our offerings. The second stage is about consideration and this is an area where we're constantly trying to figure out okay how do we ensure that all our users have all the information available to make the right choice. So this is all about um building up a concrete review system. We have over 5 million real reviews on the products that we offer. We

have about 14,000 I think videos that our influencers build um that are available on our platform so users can see how to utilize each product that we offer. Um but also we we do a lot of educational sessions either webinars or also events to educate our consumers um on our categories and the best offerings for them. And lastly conversion. So, I'm not sure I'm hoping all of

you who have at least today clicked to see Scrooge as a site, but what we pride ourselves about is building a userfriendly site that isn't bombarded with a lot of information. So, it's easy to navigate. We also offer partner events. how commercial events are incredibly popular in the Greek market and that's where partners will want to be when they want to advertise either back to school um

Black Friday and so on so forth and also of course um having a marketplace that can offer the most competitive prices always helps in that last mile and click. We also don't want you to guess what works. Scrooge gives you the insights that actually do. And how do we do that, Victoria? So, thank you, Zena. This click is definitely a lesson learned for me today. Um, so

there's three main, I'd say, channels. The first one is when it comes to training over the past two years, and hopefully we have a bunch of sellers in the crowd as well. We've built our own educational hub. So, our Scrooge Academy um has all the material that a seller will want in order for them to get up to speed with everything we've released in terms of growth

and operational tools that we offer. But through our academy, they can also get different certifications which will give them access to a bunch of incentives such as advanced data and insight, um a brand storefront so they can be much more visible on the front page. We have developed a help center. I know these sound basic, but with our help center, what we're really trying to do at

the moment is instead of bombarding our sellers with different articles to make it a lot more Q&A based and to also have an AI assistant to help them navigate any difficulties they might not be able to tackle themselves. And of course, you can join a bunch of recorded and live webinars. We usually have webinars on a weekly basis on all themes that we support within Scrooge. When

it comes to communication, um because Scrooge has about 8,000 or more active sellers, it's so important for us beyond personalized communication to have tailored CRM communications based on different trigger points. So, you'll always be updated on our latest features. Um but also through our support you can raise any tickets as well um when something's popped up that you can't tackle hopefully through our help center and our

AI chatbot. And lastly it's about all the consultation that we give you. So when it comes to consultation, the moment you get on boarded on Scrooge, you have a seller development team who will train you on the absolutely necessary how to get started, how to upload your products, what type of products to upload based on our market needs and also to give you a bit of an

introduction on the growth tools that can help you expand whether that's advertising, our deals and so on so forth. Then you have a dedicated success manager like Zena who will based on your needs do various growth sessions so that you can grow um hopefully rapidly within our platform. And then a new project that we've started is our Scrooge experts. So essentially, especially for sellers that don't have

a success manager that have just joined us, we can connect them with various agencies and freelancers um in the Greek market who can advise them on how to get sales through their growth tools, but also technically set up through XML and so on so forth. So all these experts are a community of over 100 individuals um who are certified through Scrooge. Um, and we're very excited. Actually,

we've got a few experts that have joined today's um, event as well like upcoming, the customer care support. It's actually a quite frequent question we get especially for sellers that are not familiar with Scroos. They're about to on board scruts and they're quite worried. I don't speak Greek. Who's going to help me with that? You don't have to worry not only about Greece but for any any

country. We will of course localize the content. We will translate it and we also offer end to end customer care support from our uh own uh from our own end. And when it comes to localization, since it's something that I I I dare to say it's a buzz word, right? Especially for the last years, localization, it's definitely not just about translating your products. Is about managing to

speak the user language in copy, in payments, in customer support. You don't have to struggle with that. We will take uh we will handle this end to end and you can focus on what you know best to to sell and focus on your growth. What we actually want you is to sell to share our vision and to be brutally honest with us on what works and what

won't. We are okay with that. We are actually growing together. So feel free to let us know not only what doesn't work but also what helps you a lot in your day-to-day life. So hopefully after today's mini session uh the key takeaway is that we're not just building a platform, we're building partnerships with all of you. So especially as international is a new territory for us, we

do invite you to join us um share your feedback so that together we can make all this experience as simplified as possible. And we will be all day at our stand. So, we'd love to meet you and say hi and uh have fun the rest of the day. Thank you. Thank you very much.