South African consumers are increasingly educated about the products services they purchase. According to a 2015 PwC survey, South Africans tend to do research online before purchasing offline (73%) and one of the biggest reasons for them to try new brands is the search for cheaper alternatives. How can companies help consumers with their daily shopping? Tiendeo (www.tiendeo.co.za) opened in 2014 and has come to South Africa with the aim of answering this and other questions.
Founded in Barcelona (Spain) in 2011 by Eva Martín, María Martín and Jonathan Lemberger, the leading website for online catalogues now counts itself as an e-commerce company with one of the highest growth rates and has entered this 2015 with a presence in 33 countries worldwide.
What is Tiendeo?
“We wanted to create an online business since we were interested in the online market and were well aware of the boom that tech startups were experiencing at the time we opened”, says Tiendeo’s CEO Eva Martín.
After a year of investigation, the company decided to reinvent the traditional paper catalogue. The startup aimed to substitute the old catalogues, which often did not even reach the final audience, with online catalogues, therefore creating a direct and efficient distribution channel between consumers and companies.
Tiendeo in South Africa
“The increasing number of consumers using new technology to compare prices before going to the point of sale was one of the main reasons to open our website and app in South Africa”, says María Martín, co-founder at Tiendeo. Indeed, in a short period of time Tiendeo has gained more than 600,000 unique users per month in South Africa.
Tiendeo opened in South Africa with both a website and app in 2014 and since then, it has continued to steadily grow. The app has perhaps been its greatest success as more than 59% of Tiendeo’s users are accessing through their mobile phones.
From 3 to 100 employees
What started as a small startup created by the 3 founders is now an international company with more than 100 employees. Tiendeo has forecasted that if the growth rate of the company continues at the same rate, its workforce will increase by 50% within this year.
The start-up now has more than 17 million visits a month, which is much higher than expected considering that “the maximum number of visits we could aspire to at the beginning was 1 million at the most”, according to Eva Martín.
Break-even after only 2 years
The three co-founders had their first investment of capital after attending SalonMiEmpresa in 2011, an event where startups can link up with investors. “We participated in the Elevator Pitch: in less than a minute we had to present our project to the investors and make them “fall in love it”, says María Martín. The “business angel’ of Tiendeo was Luis Martín Cabiedes, founder of the investment company Cabiedes&Partners.
After four rounds of funding, in mid 2013 Tiendeo had already reached break even, and therefore became a self-sufficient company. The startup is currently generating profits that are re-invested monthly with the aim of expanding further into international markets.
The company has an annual growth rate of 200% and generates a yearly revenue of more than $3 million. According to the CEO Eva, “since 2011 the revenue has increased fourfold and we expect the company to continue growing at the same pace during 2015. Our aim is to continue to expand internationally into both in Europe and Asia in order to satisfy the growing demand.
