How to get to a retail network from a small site and what you need to do

In 2008, the future team of Mosigry began to embody its long-time dream of publishing a high-quality domestic board game. With the sale of the first batch of "Jackal" began the history of the retail network. First, we opened an online store, then a store in real life, and then in two years we built a network covering the largest cities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

To begin with, like white people, we began to study the market for the sale of our game. When it became clear that there were companies on it that were so accustomed to the lack of competition and were so enchanting to customers, I wanted to rectify the situation at least out of principle.

In the autumn of 2008, we already had a large game of the game “Jackal” (in the premium version), worth a lot of money, lots of enthusiasm, global plans and a certain amount of money for the site and the first small store.
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And now slowly and in order.

Choosing a niche in the market

At the time of market analysis, we did not really expect to sell the game through other people's networks, but, nevertheless, we checked this possibility: of course, our product was not suitable for domestic distributors of board games: more expensive than their most expensive position and not very well known. Souvenir chains also did not fit due to low prospects.

Therefore, we launched the first online store where 19 best games of the market and Shakal were sold. Realizing the power of SEO and contextual advertising, we quickly removed the store for self-delivery (now it’s our point on Belarus: it’s not very consistent with the method of choice , but then it was an ideal option).

Approximately every third client, buying the game, asked something else that was not in the range. It turned out that in order to sell the top 20 games, you must have another hundred. Each of the "long tail" will be asked once a week, but to bring people who will make additional purchases. So we understood the power of the range as a competitive advantage.

The store in real has been launched on November 25th. The point was “beaten off” in a little more than a month, already by the New Year, selling off expensive “Jackals” for gifts (in particular, in bulk for corporate ones).

Second store

After a few months, it became clear that things were going uphill, and I wanted to try something more. It took a warehouse, an office and a large store into which all the goods would physically fit. So we opened the second point (along the way collecting a number of more rakes, no longer with the choice of location, but with questions of rent and agreements).

Three instances appeared: a warehouse, a shop in Belarus and a new store. If before such things as inventory, inventory analysis, delivery speed and other things seemed self-evident, now there was real fun. The operators "juggled" with games as they could: while we reached the logistics that worked like hours, it was probably half a year. It took to think out a CRM, which later was constantly twisted.

The most tense moment was in September-October, when it turned out that all the necessary goods did not physically fit into our warehouse. Before the heap, an enchanting night crossing happened when the pipe broke: we initially decided that there was no such circumstance that would force us to miss a whole day of trading. Accordingly, after the emergency, the entire warehouse was transported in 8 night hours. It was a real hell of hell, but, nevertheless, it turned out fun.

Opening the fifth store in Moscow, we no longer felt that terrible tension as in the beginning. As it turned out, the worst is the second and third points, then everything goes according to a more or less scalable model.

Together with the second store, the second version of the site was commissioned, where there were already about 150 games. They changed developers from freelancers to a studio in Moscow, which provided support for the project.

By the fall (we have a seasonal peak of sales on the New Year), we realized for the first time what the site load is. Fortunately, before the holidays we moved to the data center, where there were 5 cars for the site. Later, we consistently ran into channels and moved several times. Now we plan to put in the cloud. Fortunately, we always had time to think about the load in advance and solve the problem either by increasing the amount of iron or by optimization.

The first store in another city

While we were solving all these tasks in Moscow, the future director of the Kiev branch came to us and offered to open a representative office. Having overcome a whole bunch of new difficulties and having worked through the scheme with Kiev, we got experience that we could later transfer to other representative offices. Kiev began, like us, "almost in the doorway", but later moved to a shopping center .

Due to the fact that the citizens of Ukraine are less actively using Yandex, they had to focus on contextual advertising on Google and change the promotion scheme somewhat. At this point, we began to confidently overgrow with 5-6 natural links per day, which greatly alleviated the situation.

The market and our impact on it

At first, we sought to catch up and overtake the pseudo-competitor. The question was simply to gain a client base: by doing everything right, we could count not only on the predictability of growth, but on its inevitability. Then, after the “overtaking”, the most interesting came: our opportunities were limited not by competitive advantages, but by market capacity. Considering the sufficiently narrow niche and little knownness (then) of board games, we understood that the most important thing is informing people that there are such things in general.

At this point, it was decided to start the game store program - free events in different cafes of the city, where you can come and play in one of the hundreds of games of the store. The company went to the Invasion and a number of major events, participated in exhibitions: all this led to increased awareness and demand.

When you are a leader in retail, any increase in the market plays into your hands more than competitors.

The basis of all the action was the open wave effect. Now I would call it a viral distribution model, but then we only knew that one purchased “Munchkin” leads to the fact that during the week the store will have half of those with whom our client managed to play. He “charges” them, they come to us, take the games, go to their companies ... it was important to support this process and bring new and new customers.

So we learned not only to sell games, but to expand the market and create leaders on it.

Why are we growing so fast?

Because we managed to collect in one place a lot of good and right things right away - and do everything right away, and not follow the “launch, and then we'll see” model. More specifically, the following should be taken into account:

1. We need to learn every day. He stopped - froze.

A year ago, we first thought about the display of goods. They took the best books, thought hard, implemented, and the result was very good. When one of the serious merchandisers looked at the calculations, he said that Children's World went before understanding some things for several years. After visiting Starbucks and realizing what exactly a professional barista did, hooking us up with a conversation, we improved our service. In each city we try to walk around the supermarkets and see what solutions we can adopt. Each new player in the market (regardless of size) is carefully analyzed: we are looking for something in his model that may be useful to us. Every day, each of our employees, doing the usual things, may stumble upon an idea, send it and know that it will reach the director within a couple of minutes.

Any area of ​​our business is constantly evolving. If we see a jamb or just feel some kind of inconvenience, if someone has an idea or some thought comes to mind, it needs to be implemented and look at the result. It’s not a fact that it happens right away - but it certainly happens in the development process.

One of my favorite examples of settling such “inconveniences” is when we made beautiful “open-closed” signs on the doors of stores. There are thousands of such tablets in the city, and everyone says “closed” on the reverse side of “openly”. When you go out, it looks frankly stupid, but everyone is used to it. When this was noticed, on the same day the plates were replaced with two different ones. Of course, you can ask what this gave us commercially: perhaps nothing, but we received deep moral satisfaction.

Perhaps the most important words that describe how we get to the right things are responsibility and openness. The team is ready to learn, admit their mistakes and see problems where they are already familiar to everyone.

In this regard, there is another interesting illustration: literally recently, we drove at night along the Moscow-Kiev highway and nearly flew into a scattering of white bricks lying on a downhill from a small slide. They just dropped the truck. Having said all that had been said about the driver and his relatives on the female line, and seeing the two "blinking" victims, with whom a brick flew into the road clearance and something was torn down, we drove past. After about ten kilometers, we slightly moved away from the shock, turned around on the highway, returned and threw all the bricks and debris on the curb. I would like to think that in those areas that relate to our business, we can do likewise responsibly.

2. Search for the right people and give them the right places.

Team - the basis of the effectiveness of the project.

First, it is worth educating future key personnel from your own staff. Secondly, to hire specialists who are suitable in spirit. Third, look for people, not vacancies. For example, in stores, before the New Year, there were leaflets “Come to work for us,” which were put in the package to those who had a characteristic glint in their eyes. One of these leaflets hit our future event-manager: she came for an interview just like that, because we were looking for a positive and hard-working person. Nobody thought that we needed such a person, but the place immediately appeared.

We also have one simple rule: even if you are a manager, you should still be in the shops and see real customers. On New Year, for example, the entire presidium of the company, without exception, stood in the stores.

3. Always do the hard stuff first.

An important thing was the understanding that you first need to do complex, incomprehensible or unpleasant things, and only then - well-known and simple. If in the morning to deal with a complex call, it will not depress the whole day. If today to do the hardest part of the work, tomorrow's part will seem like a rest. If you do something that no one else does, then you will not have to catch up with competitors.

4. Understand what creates success and not start without it.

In my opinion, there are three things that formed the basis for the success of the project as a whole even before its launch:
- A talented leader who meets the 5th level of Good to Great.
- The team, which from the very beginning understood that business should be fun, that we should do well or not at all, and that our task is not to sell N boxes, but to make people happier.
- And the TOTE model We test all the theories that we have about any aspects of business, analyze the results (not only failures, but also sudden successes, too) and build from this mechanics, which we consistently implement in the network.

The approach “I don’t know anything, but I’m testing it now”, combined with the lack of fear of accepting the wrong decision, allowed me to find a lot of very interesting things.

5. Think over the strategy and not be afraid to change it.

Now we very clearly understand that all our actions should be based on the fact that we are building a global social network in real life, acting as a technical platform for small groups of people. This means that we must create conditions, and not exert force to achieve goals. It is hard to think from the category of social platform, but this is what brings us success. I think this is exactly what business 2.0 should look like.

And one more thing: there is no “silver bullet” or “magic pill” that suddenly makes a company successful. There is only a chain of consecutive steps, each of which slightly accelerates development and brings it closer to the goal. When there are many such steps, they have a cumulative effect.

At last

If I had the experience that I have gained in the past two years, in earlier projects, they would have gone an order of magnitude better. But perhaps everything that needs to be known is already described in the books. Another thing is that each of the found theses need to be tested in practice - and then it starts to look completely different. True, if you engage in what you truly love - and then any difficulties will not be problems, but situations.

It is with passionate love and it is worth starting any business.

PS If you are interested in learning more about the insane experience of such a rapid scaling of the project and everything that we went through, ask in the comments: there will be either a detailed answer or a promise of a separate topic. But first look at our blog on Habré: there is a case of opening points, information for game authors and many other interesting things.