Aleksandra Sroka-Krzyżak: Across borders with Allegro

A lot has changed at Allegro since last year, especially concerning international expansion. You have acquired a leading e-commerce stakeholder in the Czech Republic, the MALL group. You also launched allegro.com. What stage are you at in establishing your international structure and what countries does it include?

A lot is going on in our international strategy. We have been preparing for this for the past few years. First of all, we launched allegro.com – a version of our portal that allows you to sell in the EU. Retailers already offer more than 70 million products internationally, and this number is constantly growing. We are also placing a strong focus on acquisitions. In April, we acquired a leading Czech e-commerce player, the MALL group, which operates on five markets in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, and Croatia). It is a major player in these markets and the number one in Slovenia. We are currently working on integration and creating a common infrastructure. We are also actively gearing up to launch Allegro in the Czech Republic to offer Czech consumers the same opportunities that are available in Poland.

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Aleksandra Sroka-Krzyżak: Ponad granicami z Allegro

Allegro to tak naprawdę sprzedawcy. Jeżeli im idzie dobrze, to i nam. Robimy wszystko, aby pomóc im w efektywnym i ciągłym wzroście biznesu – mówi Aleksandra Sroka-Krzyżak, dyrektor ds. strategii i chief of staff w Allegro.

Over the past few years, the e-commerce market has been growing. Now we are entering a period of slowdown. Does it affect Allegro’s business?

For the e-commerce market, especially marketplace platforms, this is not entirely bad news. Customers, when they want to save money, look for a place where they can find everything and buy products the cheapest. Allegro is such a place. We have 250 million offers with a guarantee of the best possible price. We see that customers are spending more and more time searching for products at the best prices. We want to help them do that.

We still have great potential, especially in Central and Eastern European markets, where no one offers such a selection of goods and the convenience of shopping as Allegro. The main purpose of buying the Mall Group was precisely to make Allegro’s unique functionality available throughout the region.

The cost of doing business is rising. Do you support your vendors in this area?

The retailers are the heart of Allegro, and 135 thousand companies use our platform. If they are doing well, so are we. We are constantly trying to be a real asset to their businesses. The most important thing is that the platform on which they sell facilitates effective and continuous growth; e.g. if we expand into foreign markets, the retailer does not have to do anything else, but simply list its offer, which can automatically be available in all the markets where we operate. We already have 70 million such offers. We are constantly striving to provide easier and more effective tools for the sellers – be it comparing prices or suggesting what can be done to make the business grow.

We also invest in the customer. The Smart free delivery programme would be an example of such an investment as Allegro bears most of the cost. It gives customers free delivery and allows them to buy more and more. Allegro Pay allows you to pay as quickly as possible, even if you don’t have the funds available at the moment. This benefits retailers at no cost.

We are also just launching Allegro Protect now – a guarantee that ensures that if anything bad happens to a purchase of up to PLN 20,000, Allegro will refund the money. This guarantees the safest shopping experience with us.

What is the biggest challenge when it comes to international expansion? Is there any desire on the part of sellers to expand beyond Poland?

Yes, there is. Many of them decided to list their offers for export. Some are still a bit hesitant or don’t have enough skills. We consider this to be our mission as well, i.e. educating and facilitating the process.

The greatest challenge is how much we can adapt to the local market versus creating universal solutions that work everywhere. When you have universal solutions, it’s cheaper, faster, and more efficient. However, customers are not the same everywhere. On top of that, we have different payment or delivery methods. We want to offer more convenience to the customer than local players, and this requires investing in research on the local market. In general, expanding abroad is easier to plot on slides than to actually do it. However, I am optimistic because we are making more and more progress. With the merger I mentioned earlier, we inherited a great team. I’m sure Allegro’s foreign expansion will go well.

– Notes taken by: Grzegorz Balawender