B&S Group: The cross-border kings of reach
B&S Group started as a wholesale trading company specializing in luxury and fast-moving consumer goods and has grown to tax and duty-free goods, as well as wholesalers and trading.
By partnering with the world’s premium consumer brands in beauty, liquors, personal care, food, health, and consumer electronics, they can serve millions of consumers daily – either directly or through their wholesaler and reseller partners.
Powered by their high-tech platform and arising from supply chain expertise, they provide sourcing, warehousing, distribution, digital commerce, marketing, and brand development solutions that enhance choice, speed up delivery, drive conversion and increase reach. In the past few years, they have developed their own marketplace as well as other e-commerce B2C platforms, and it is safe to say that they are seriously starting to mature as e-commerce retailers as well as a wholesaler.
If you had to choose one competitive advantage for B&S, which would that be?
“Well, our slogan is ‘the king of reach’, and I think it captures perfectly what we do better: our expertise, our global connections and relationships, and our general capacity to reach and impact any market in the world.”
Tell us a little bit about the relationship between B&S and ChannelEngine.
“ChannelEngine joined forces with us about a year and a half, or two years ago, I think, when we were expanding into marketplace territory. And has acted as an integrator, providing us with some of the tools we needed to access all the marketplaces scattered across Europe. For us, it is an easier way to connect our existing systems and achieve a quicker integration with all the marketplaces across Markets.”
One challenge and one lesson learned from your cross-border experience?
“The biggest challenge we faced for the marketplaces was the content. Each market has its own different needs regarding content, specifications, and customer needs. And if you come from one single source, you need to localize and adapt this to each marketplace.”
“And even if it makes all the sense in the world in your head to just migrate whatever is currently working from one marketplace to the next, the reality is that it most likely is not going to work, and you need to adapt it or start from scratch in each marketplace.”
In the following five years, what would be the future plans of B&S?
“Our main goal will be to remain as kings of reach and expand and fortify the reach we already have. Move even more into an e-commerce B2C platform and service the market whenever it wants it, and wherever it is.”
One piece of advice for any small company that is just starting and wants to be successful, like B&S?
“The best single piece of advice I can give would be to pick your strategy and stick to it. And really determine if you have what it takes to do the operation the way it needs to be done. If not, pick another strategy. Don’t waste time.”
If you’re expanding online sales rapidly like B&S, you may also be facing the challenge of creating and optimizing content for each marketplace.
Learn more about the importance of market-specific content, the benefit it can bring to your ecommerce strategy, and how to do it in 3 simple steps.
{Note: This article was originally published in Cross-Border Magazine - Credits: Text: Frank Calviño // Photos: Cross-Border Magazine}
