Since 1930, Roy Verschueren’s family, owner of MarketOnWeb, has been selling cleaning products and other household goods on Antwerp’s public markets. Roy founded MarketOnWeb about 6 years ago. The name is the literal translation of a “traditional” market on the web. We spoke to Roy about the transition from traditional sales to the e-commerce, the switch from Magento 1 to 2, the impact the corona virus has had on the growth of MarketOnWeb and the importance of a reliable hosting partner.
From traditional sales to e-commerce
After Roy graduated as a commercial engineer at the University of Antwerp, he specialized in Digital Marketing. A perfect combination to start his own webshop afterwards. In 2015 he started selling the products that his parents always sold on the markets through a Magento 1 webshop.
Over time, Roy began to see more and more opportunities. The product range was expanded and more attention was paid to search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA). All these factors drove the platform to grow rapidly.
Compared to previous generations, Roy had found a sweet spot. He went looking for a new approach that would make the business model scalable. The small business that Roy started in his living room has now grown into a successful company with a team of 12 employees.
Getting ready for the future: migration from Magento 1 to 2
As MarketOnWeb kept growing steadily in recent years, the e-commerce platform itself couldn’t stay behind. Roy: “Magento 1 was showing more and more flaws when it was end-of-life and we wanted to focus fully on the future. Together with our joint development partner Indie Group, we wrote an extensive plan of action focused on return on investment (ROI). ”
Of course, a Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration brings new challenges. These have all been tackled through close cooperation and good communication with partner Indie Group. The end result is impressive! MarketOnWeb is no longer only active in Belgium, but has entered into new markets in the Netherlands, France and, recently, Germany.
The impact of COVID-19 on the success of MarketOnWeb
Unexpectedly, the corona crisis caused the growth of MarketOnWeb to accelerate. During the lockdown, many people had to buy many of their products online. This shift brought new opportunities for e-commerce and for MarketOnWeb. Consumers who were initially skeptical about buying their products online now received the necessary boost to start purchasing online. When they experience an online purchase as a success (good customer service, correct delivery, good product, etc.), it has a positive effect on their opinion about e-commerce.
Roy: “These extra orders naturally brought a higher workload, which we hadn’t seen coming. We do not hide the fact that it has cost us blood, sweat and tears, but everything has fallen into place again and we consider ourselves lucky with the opportunities that have arisen.”
Hypernode: reliable, proactive and optimized hosting
Roy: “Everyone knows that keeping a Magento running is work for real specialists. Because the opportunities that Magento has are usually directly proportional to the hosting capacity. That is why we think it is important to choose a reliable partner who also proactively thinks along to optimize the hosting. You can build the most awesome webshop of all time, but if the customer has to wait 10 seconds after each click, you will have few customers left at the end of the journey. ”
Roy: “Ensuring that our webshop is a safe online environment is one of our top priorities. We believe that in 2020 privacy of personal data is extremely important. After all, a good privacy policy is not only in the interest of the customer, but also of the webshop itself. If customers feel that their privacy is being violated, they will generally become suspicious of e-commerce. The entire sector therefore benefits from the respect and transparency of the personal data of customers and visitors. Hypernode certainly contributes to this with its highly secure and reliable platform. ”
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Hi! My name is Dion, Account Manager at Hypernode
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