"We're expecting exponential growth in mobile shopping"
Interview with Christian Wanner, LeShop.ch (PDF)
Mr Wanner, as co-founder and CEO of LeShop, how do you understand "re-generation" in relation to your particular business sector?
For a start, I'd say that some enterprises will regenerate themselves, others won't! The music trade is a case in point. Some of the big names slept through the revolution and then were brutally overtaken by a PC manufacturer called Apple and a bookseller called Amazon. The game's over now – the music trade is digitised and highly personalised, and there's nothing they can do about it. In our particular field, the struggle in Europe is in full swing. The last twelve years have seen all the big players develop a division for conducting online business. In the UK, for instance, between three and four percent of grocery purchases are made online. This market is already worth approximately four billion euros – and it will go on growing.
Looking back on LeShop's last two – very successful years – years, what have you done better than the others in e-commerce?
I think these last two years simply reflect our unrelenting pioneering work of the last twelve years in which LeShop has been in operation. We try systematically but organically to improve every aspect of our offering. Meeting customer expectations is a challenge in which there is no let up. One of the most important of the more recent innovations has been mobile shopping. We launched our iPhone app in January 2010. This channel now accounts for eight percent of our overall sales. We're expecting exponential growth in mobile shopping because technology has freed our customers from the constraints of time and distance – now they really can shop wherever they are and whenever they like. We're seeing completely new forms of shopping: on the train during the commute to and from work, or from home when you see what's lacking in the fridge.
In present-day retailing, what features do you no longer believe in that you used to believe in ten years ago?
My first step on the career ladder was at Procter & Gamble, where I learnt the best practices of brand management at a top FMCG company. The methods we employed to launch or push products were traditional, widely applied and expensive. We spent millions on advertising to tell our customers that this or that shampoo or this or that nappy was the best. The approach worked at the time. But it doesn't today. The rules have changed. With the emergence of the Internet and social media, people have lost confidence in the mass media.
How exactly would your company have to change in order to stay fit for the future?
We're in the particular situation of having no-pre-Internet past, so we've got to stay alert and innovative.
Which brand is the (worldwide) benchmark in your market and why?
There's no gold standard in our sector, nothing comparable to what Amazon is for books or iTunes for music. Our business is much more complex because we have to deliver fresh produce and because there are marked structural differences between countries. The biggest global player is Tesco.com, but LeShop is well positioned, with one of the few profitable business models far and wide and perhaps the highest pro capita consumption after Tesco. In absolute terms we're even larger than huge grocers such as Carrefour or Rewe – which is not bad for a small country like Switzerland.
What's your most expensive (online) purchase?
I'm seriously considering buying my next car in the US.
Which three brands do you admire most?
Canon, BMW and Amazon.