Visiting Etrias in Boxtel. At this super fresh location I talk to Stan Verhoeven of Etrias. Stan is one of the Founders. During the recording they were therefore only 3 working days in this new building. Hence, the podcast may sound a little hollow. Nevertheless, it turned out to be an interesting conversation. Listen for yourself!
Topics discussed:
70 hour work weeks
Sabbatical of 9 months
Sold house, sold car, quit job
Stan is happy with new things. Such as the move to this brand new building, Black Friday turnover, Christmas drinks with colleagues.
Working with own Software, Copernica, A Capture (Pay Vision), Multisafe Pay (as backup), DHL for the Netherlands
Have been around for 8 years now and employ about 60 people
Physical store in Vught
Active in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxenburg, England, Germany and France
1 Distribution center
Working with bol.com and Amazon
Special discount code: listen to the Podcast :-)
Start capital. Didn't need much.
Milestone: million euros in turnover
After 2 weeks the first order finally came
Started with SEO and Google Adwords
SEO and SEA is Stan's thing
No need for big budgets.
Everything is ROI based
Etrias is a medium-sized player
Opbox against bol.com, Zalando, Coolblue
Trying to get the Niches
Adwords is still pay language provided you are on top of it.
Bing does about 10%
eMail marketing is important
The comparison sites
Influencers in combination with SEO and a backlink
Watch out for wannabe influencers
Hardly any Facebook ads
Fulfillment placed with Ewarehousing
After a year and a half after the start, there had to be a company that had to generate an acceptable salary for 3 people.
After a turnover of 2,2 million, they were back with 2 feet on the ground
Profits halved
First company takeover
The first FTE
Support never outsourced
Always gone for the wind. Never had any real depths.
At Etrias they work with a corvee system.
French, German and English colleagues on support
Translation into German was not a success
Only after translation by a Native speaker did it also work in Germany
Apply in your own company
Started as friends, and still good friends
Ambitions do not lie in expansion to other countries, but optimization of the current channels.
NL grows Rene Tulner mentor to Stan
Conversations with investors
Easier to bring in 10 million than 1 million
Golden tip for other eCommerce entrepreneurs
Most entrepreneurs are very stubborn
stan@etrias.nl if you have any questions or ideas
Favorite podcast: Fire at the mansion, the Hormone factory
Eckart's Notes
Other speaker I should interview: Rob Knops, Resource World
Elise of the Earl Madpets
Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes.
Show notes: https://ecommercecafe.nl/stan-verhoeven-etrias/
