In 2008, Elies van der Graaff started Onlinepets BV and www.medpets.nl. At that time, pet health products were only sold offline through regular veterinarians. Medpets.nl was the first in the Netherlands to offer a large online range of veterinary medicines, nutritional supplements, diet food and pet care products, which were in high demand online. During the Cross Border e-commerce Event, Elies van der Graaff shares the success of medpets.nl during the presentation "Pets Across the Border."
Medpets is growing rapidly, including abroad. How are you managing that growth?
Because we have not outsourced anything, we keep all growth under our own control. We ensure timely capacity scaling in all areas so that, for example, logistics and customer service are always sufficiently staffed to provide optimal service to our customers. Short lines of communication and flexibility in our organization enable us to respond quickly to growth.
What are you doing from the Netherlands and what is happening locally in the countries where you operate?
All activities for all countries take place at our office in the Netherlands, we work with native speakers to serve the customers optimally. Per country we strive to cooperate with the best carriers.
What is the biggest challenge in your industry?
Retaining customers based on service, assortment and experience in order to stay ahead of price-fighters.
What are your plans for the near future?
Our English website www.vetsend.co.uk goes live this month. With this we expect to be successful quickly because of the professional and extensive preliminary process. We also see growing demand for our products in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. We are serving this demand by constantly expanding our product range. Furthermore, at the beginning of next year we are going to expand our logistics considerably so that we can continue to serve our customers optimally with a very wide range available directly from stock.
What would you advise entrepreneurs who want to start selling online across borders?
Do it right or don't do it. Tackle it professionally, get good texts, good logistics, knowledgeable native customer service, invest in marketing. Start country by country and learn from the mistakes.
