Romania – How to do it!

To my favourite question , “where should Radko expand to?” I have a surprisingly simple answer for many. Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary. And immediately! I don’t put the emphasis on immediately because I want to… I say that because soon, for example, Romania may not be such an interesting market anymore. And why it still is in my opinion, I will tell you. I like speculators. But in a good way. In the best way. I mean, marketers (and eshops) have to keep inventing, speculating, to be first, second in searches. What to bring to the customer in addition. How to start, how to reach him… And all this in a foreign language. I’m not a marketer. I’m not a marketer. But I do believe that you have to time the sale of products with different promotions.

Even the right decision at the wrong moment is the wrong decision.

What do I mean?
At this point in time, the Balkan countries are also interesting in terms of rising living standards.
However, they are a bit of beginners in ecommerce.
There is not even much competition in imports or exports.
They just don’t have the experience of it yet that the Western countries have.
That’s why they have a high cash-on-delivery rate (around 70% – depending on the type of products).
What is worse for the eshops – especially for those more distant from Romania – is that Romanians are so distrustful when ordering things from the internet that they order one product, often identical, from several eshops. In other words, if you are delivering to Romania for a long time (e.g. D+3) it is likely that you are already late for a large number of consumers.
Others were faster.
Same example as with door to door – you arrive with the same product last or second to last.
Another important thing is timing.
Romania has some holidays much later, some much earlier.
The first Christmas for an ecommerce business is definitely during the black friday period.
So they have it a week earlier in Romania.
That’s why we recommend and remind the ecommerce stores that work with us to prepare for this market a little bit earlier and be prepared that that next week the export will continue for the other markets.
They have Easter a month later in the case of leap year, for example.
Again.
We’re sending a notification to the eshops that are dealing with this so that they don’t boost their marketing at the wrong moment.
This can make the eshop look untrustworthy or at best amateurish.
A big topic is their addresses, where they live.
We are used to the classic street names with a postcode.
In Romania, they don’t know the ZIP CODE.
This is because they have Judets (Judete) or otherwise Canties.
It’s quite important to have it set up correctly in the cart (note in the shop).
Ideal when integrating carriers.
Otherwise they will write in the ZIP CODE field – 00000, 99999.
You may lose the package or have to reroute it and worst of all, again your eshop may look untrustworthy.
And your customers won’t come back.
Similar logic can be applied to additional services – (jewellery).
The address of the eshop, IBAN, cash on delivery, the right choice of courier and a properly set up shopping cart no longer fit in my newsletter.
Feel free to email me or subscribe to the newsletter, where we will probably revisit this.
Thank you.