{"id":85601,"date":"2020-10-09T16:50:02","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T13:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/polish-amazon-eyes-expansion-ahead-of-record-ipo\/"},"modified":"2020-10-09T16:50:02","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T13:50:02","slug":"polish-amazon-eyes-expansion-ahead-of-record-ipo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/polish-amazon-eyes-expansion-ahead-of-record-ipo\/","title":{"rendered":"#’Polish Amazon’ eyes expansion ahead of record IPO"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#’Polish Amazon’ eyes expansion ahead of record IPO<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Frenchman
\n Frenchman Francois Nuyts is ready for any challenge US giant Amazon can throw at him as he readies his Allegro company for a stock market listing Monday
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Gazing out over the skyscrapers on the skyline, the head of Poland’s top e-commerce company is unfazed by Amazon’s imminent arrival as his business prepares for a record IPO.<\/p>\n

Instead, Frenchman Francois Nuyts, CEO of Allegro and himself a former Amazon executive, told AFP in an interview that his fast-growing company is ready to expand beyond Poland.<\/p>\n

“There are many things we believe we do quite well if not better than any competitors,” Nuyts said when asked about reports that Amazon could launch a Polish service within weeks.<\/p>\n

Set up in 1999 as a homegrown version of eBay, Allegro will list on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on Monday in an IPO valuing the company at around $11 billion (9.4 billion euros) which is being closely watched by other still sluggish, pandemic-struck European markets.<\/p>\n

The company, which is owned by London-based private equity funds Cinven, Permira and Mid Europa, has said it is planning to raise around $256 million and use the proceeds to repay debt.<\/p>\n

It is expected to displace Polish video game<\/a>s developer CD Projekt, the company behind the runaway global hit “The Witcher”, as the biggest firm on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n

‘Quite a lot of disruption’<\/b><\/p>\n

Buoyed by the e-commerce boom triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, net profit jumped to 289.7 million Polish zloty (64.2 million euros, $75.5 million) in the first half of the year from 195.7 million zloty in the same period in 2019.<\/p>\n

Nuyts pointed to Allegro’s “nimble” and “unique” business model connecting more than 100,000 sellers\u2014many of them small “mom and pop stores”\u2014with some 12 million active buyers.<\/p>\n

The company has one mid-sized warehouse and is planning to open a larger one along with four smaller ones.<\/p>\n

Nuyts said more than 90 percent of products sold never go through a warehouse\u2014moving directly from seller to buyer.<\/p>\n

“That’s really the innovation of Allegro,” he said, pointing to other companies that have “global giants” selling through their platforms and move products through several warehouses.<\/p>\n

The business model has helped Allegro during the pandemic, which Nuyts said had caused “quite a lot of disruption” at its one warehouse.<\/p>\n

The company has also relied on an extensive network of lockers across Poland, which allow customers to pick up their purchases without any direct contact with delivery drivers.
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‘European success story’<\/b><\/p>\n

Nuyts, a foodie and kitesurfing enthusiast, admits it is “a little bit unusual to have some Frenchman from Bordeaux” heading up a Polish company that is ranked in the top 10 e-commerce sites in the world in terms of visitors.<\/p>\n

The executive was app<\/a>ointed CEO two years ago after helping Amazon set up in Italy and Spain as part of a globe-trotting career.<\/p>\n

He said he was drawn to Allegro as a “European success story”, pointing to its humble start in 1999 in a garage in Poznan in western Poland where the company is still headquartered.<\/p>\n

Asked about expansion, he said: “We’d love to… It would be a shame if we didn’t find a way to have more customers and sellers internationally.”<\/p>\n

The company is already exporting\u2014mainly catering for large Polish diasporas in countries like Britain\u2014and is diversifying into financial services and logistics in Poland.<\/p>\n

Eyeing the global e-commerce boom driven by the coronavirus pandemic, Nyuts insists that the EU and national governments should help ensure a “level playing field” with competitors such as China.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes it feels that the rules are not the same,” he said, pointing the finger at China’s subsidised shipping rates and VAT avoidance.<\/p>\n

In any case, he said Allegro would remain focused on growing within Poland, where it currently has a three percent share of the entire retail market.<\/p>\n

Overall, e-commerce in the EU country of 38 million people is still only eight percent of total retail\u2014far lower than in western Europe.<\/p>\n

Bhe outlook is relatively good, with the Polish economy set to contract at one of the lowest rates in the EU this year before bouncing back in 2021.<\/p>\n

“You really feel like you’re in new Europe here,” he said, speaking in his office in one of the sleek skyscrapers mushrooming in Warsaw.<\/p>\n

“There’s that dynamism, energy, a growth that is quite uncommon.”\n <\/p>\n\n

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Polish miners’ blood boosts search for new COVID-19 drug<\/a>\n <\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2020 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n ‘Polish Amazon’ eyes expansion ahead of record IPO (2020, October 9)
\n retrieved 9 October 2020
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2020-10-amazon-eyes-expansion-ipo.html<\/p>\n

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