Allbirds CEO Joey Zwillinger on the startup’s $100 million round, profitability, and SPAC mania

As people spend less time out in the world and more time daydreaming about when a vaccine will arrive, lifestyle shoes are only gaining traction.

One obvious beneficiary is Allbirds, the San Francisco-based maker of comfortable, sustainable kicks that launched in 2016 and quickly became a favorite in Silicon Valley circles before taking off elsewhere.

Though the company saw its business slow this year because of the pandemic, its products are now available to purchase in 35 countries and its 20 brick-and-mortar stores are sprinkled throughout the U.S. and Europe, with another outpost in Tokyo and several shops in China.

Investors clearly see room for more growth. Allbirds just closed on $100 million in Series E funding at roughly the same $1.6 billion valuation it was assigned after closing on $27 million in Series D funding earlier this year, and blank-check companies have been calling, says cofounder and CEO Joey Zwillinger. He talked with us earlier this week in a chat that has been edited for length and clarity.

TC: Your shoes are sold worldwide. What are your biggest markets?

JZ: The biggest market by far is the U.S., and the same day that we started here in 2016, we also launched in New Zealand, so that’s been very good to us over the last four years, too. But we’ve seen growth in Japan and Korea and China and Canada and Australia. We have a network of warehouses globally that lets us reach 2.5 billion people [who], if they were so inclined, could get their product in three days. We’re proud of the infrastructure we’ve set up.

TC: We’ve all worn shoes a lot less than we might have expected in 2020. How has that impacted your business?

JZ: We’re growing but definitely not at the same pace we would be had the pandemic not occurred. We’re predominantly digital in terms of how we reach people, but stores are important for us. And we had to switch [those] off completely and lost a portion of our sales for a long time.

TC: Did you have to lay off your retail employees?

JZ: A large portion of our retail force was unable to work, but we were luckily able to keep them fully paid for four months, plus [some received] government benefits if they got that. And now all of our 20 stores are up and running again in a way that’s totally safe and everyone feels really comfortable.

We also donated shoes to frontline workers — 10,000 pairs or around a million dollars’ worth.

TC: What does Allbirds have up its sleeve, in terms of new offerings?

JZ: We just launched our native mobile app, and through it we’re able to give our more loyal fans exclusives. It’s a really cool experience that blends technology with fashion. You can try on shoes in a virtual mirror; you’re given information [about different looks] that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

We also launched wool-based weather-proofed running shoes in April that have blown away our expectations but [were fast discovered by] people who haven’t really been running for 10 to 15 years and are running again [because of gym closures]. It’s a super high-stakes category and one that’s hard to break into because people buy on repeat. But we spent two years making it. It’s not like we launched it because of the pandemic. It’s a shoe for 5K to 10K distances — it’s not a marathon shoe or a trail shoe — and that we’ve been able to clearly articulate that speaks to its success, I think.

TC: What about clothing?

We launched underwear and socks last year in a small launch. We developed a textile that hasn’t been used before — it’s a blend of tree fiber and merino wool because our view is that nature can unlock magic. Underwear is typically synthetic — it’s made from plastics — or cotton, which isn’t a great material for a whole bunch of reasons. [Meanwhile] ours is phenomenal for temperature control; it also feels like cashmere.

TC: Patagonia really advertises its social and environmental values. Do you see Allbirds evolving in a similar way, with a growing spate of offerings?

JZ: I’m incredibly humbled by [the comparison]. Given their environmental stewardship of the retail sector, we hope we’re compared to them. But they are much more of an outdoor brand — not a competitor so to speak. And we’d love to share more of the retail world with them so we can do our environmental thing together.

TC: You just raised funding. Are you profitable and, if not, is profitability in sight?

JZ: We’ve been profitable for most of our existence. Having some discipline as we grow is good. We’re not close to the profitability that we’ll eventually have, but we’re still a small company in investment mode. After we emerge from the pandemic, we’ll enter a ramping-up phase.

TC: Everyone and their brother is raising money for a blank-check company, or SPAC, which can make it a lot faster for a private company to go public. Have you been approached, and might this option interest you?

JZ: Yes and no. Yes we’ve been approached, and no, we’re [not interested]. We want to build a great company and being public might be something that helps enable that for a whole bunch of reasons. But we want to do it at the right time, in a way that helps the business grow in the most durable and sustainable fashion. Just jumping at the opportunity of a SPAC without doing the rigorous prep the way we want to, we’re not super focused on that

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Online garden shop Bloomscape raises $15M Series B, acquires plant care app Vera

If you thought to invest in more plants or started growing a small garden during 2020’s coronavirus lockdowns, you weren’t alone. According to Bloomscape, a company that ships live plants straight from greenhouses to customers’ homes, a number of people become interested in plants this year, increasing demand for its already growing service. Today, Bloomscape announced it’s expanding its business with the addition of $15 million in Series B funding as well as the acquisition of plant care app Vera.

The new round of financing was led by General Catalyst, and included participation from Annox Capital’s Bob Mylod; former Chairman of Booking Holdings and Home Depot board member Jeff Boyd; former Seventh Generation and Burt’s Bees CEO John Replogle; along with existing investors Revolution Ventures and Ludlow Ventures.

Joel Cutler, co-founder and Managing Director of General Catalyst and Bob Mylod, Managing Partner at Annox Capital Management will join Bloomscape’s Board of Directors as part of the round. To date, Bloomscape has raised $24 million.

Image Credits: Bloomscape, screenshot via TechCrunch

Bloomscape was founded by Michigan designer and entrepreneur Justin Mast and launched in 2018 with the goal of reinventing how plants move about the country and arrive on customers’ doorsteps.

Today, there are other businesses that ship live plants, including home improvement stores and large e-commerce retailers like Amazon. But what makes Bloomscape different are the steps it has made to ensure a better delivery process and its logistics operations behind-the-scenes.

The company has filed a patent on parts of its plant packaging technology, where plants and pots are held securely at the right temperature. It also uses a proprietary soil mix that has a bonding agent that holds the soil together better during shipping and better protects the roots, explains Boomscape CEO Justin Mast.

In addition, because plants are shipped directly to the customer from the greenhouse, they’re healthier upon arrival than those spend, on average, 4 weeks traveling from a greenhouse to a big box store before being sent to a customer’s home.

The company is also now working to refine its regional fulfillment strategy to include localized centers and systems that will shorten transit times even further.

Image Credits: Bloomscape

Mast stresses that Bloomscape’s success to date wasn’t dependent on any one factor, but rather has been a combination of people, processes and systems.

“Key people on our product and supply chain team have decades of experience in shipping plants around the country through couriers and best in class fulfillment processes,” says Mast. “And now internally we have gathered a massive amount of information about which plants ship well during varying conditions. We are now systematizing this information so we can really optimize our product mixes to really ensure healthy plants, more successful plant parents, and ultimately a much better customer experience,” he notes.

Even before the pandemic, Bloomscape was seeing steadily rising growth. Though the company doesn’t share its specific metrics, Mast would say that his business has grown by 4x since last year and it has more than doubled its staff.

Millennials are Bloomscape’s fast-growing segment, including those outside urban centers in the south and mid-Atlantic regions. Many are also new or recent single-family homeowners, as well.

When COVID-19 hit and lockdowns were in force, Bloomscape had to quickly adapt to not just growing consumer demand but also a remote work lifestyle among employees.

“During a time of immeasurable difficulty for so many people, we are very fortunate that the business was not negatively affected by the pandemic. During the first few months of COVID, along with the rest of the world, we saw a lot of things change,” Mast says. “A lot of people found comfort and became interested in plants. We are incredibly grateful that our plants offer that little bit of solace and joy via nature into the home. We were thrilled to be able to bring something so meaningful to people during that time,” he adds.

The accelerated shift to e-commerce prompted by the pandemic will likely continue to benefit Bloomscape even when the health crisis passes. Plus, as Mast points out, once people dip their toe in with plants, they often don’t stop at one.

As a part of the funding news, Bloomscape also acquired plant care app Vera for an undisclosed sum. The deal was for the tech only, not the team who built the app itself, we’re told.

Image Credits: Bloomscape

Vera today provides customers with plant care tips, content, troubleshooting help, watering reminders and more. Bloomscape plans to leverage the app to better connect with customers and integrate its own plant care content and resources, like its existing Talk to Plant Mom plant care assistance service.

In addition to its expansion of plant care offering with Vera, Bloomscape plans to use the new capital to grow its team, refine its regional fulfillment strategy, and launch new products. One such product is its Edible Garden Shop, where customers can buy small tomato, lavender, sweet pepper, hot pepper, kale mix, mint and chamomile plants.

Next year, the company will move into outdoor plants, the company says.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a team that understands a consumer vertical better than Bloomscape does with home gardening,” said Joel Cutler, co-founder and managing director, General Catalyst, in a statement about his firm’s investment. “The team has found not just excellence in the complicated logistics of cultivating and shipping live plants nationwide, but also a strong resonance with today’s consumer who’s looking to green up their living spaces,” he said.

 

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How to sell online when you have 0 sales

Starting your own business is an exciting venture and when you put hard work and passion into making your business a reality, it can be heartbreaking when you get no sales. We’re going to be talking through a few ways you can earn your first few sales and get your new business off to a great start.

Pre-launch marketing

Before you fully launch your business it’s a good idea to try to build an email list of friends, family and others that would be interested in your products, enticing them by signing up to receive emails, they’ll be the first to know when you launch your business and your products are available for purchase.

You can also encourage people to follow you on social media and sign up for your newsletter through your posts. Even if your list is small, make sure to create and send out some pre-launch teaser emails a week or so before you go live. This will help create buzz around your launch, particularly if you’re able to confirm a date and time for people to mark their calendars with.

Word of mouth

Your friends and family will be great advocates for your new business venture and word of mouth is still a powerful tool in today’s digital world. Perhaps offer a small incentive of a discount on your products for every 2-5 sales they help you get. Make sure that whatever you’re selling is something your friends and family would purchase – it will be easier for them to advocate your products if it’s something they’re interested in.

Run a giveaway

Conducting a giveaway on your social media channels is a great way to build your audience and raise brand awareness in the early stages of launching your business. Instagram is a great platform to conduct giveaways but you could also do a cross-channel giveaway to increase your followers across your two main channels.

Make sure to set a deadline for your giveaway and include particular activities that need to be done in order to enter, such as following on Instagram and Twitter or sharing the post to their stories. Short Stack is a great tool for tracking those who enter your giveaways by commenting on your post and makes the process of drawing a winner simple.

Advertising

If you have some budget, you can always look to up your advertising efforts and there are many options to choose from. One of the more effective ways to advertise and increase your conversions is through Facebook remarketing where you essentially retarget people who have already visited your site and browsed your products but might not have made a purchase.

You need around 3-7 touchpoints in a user journey before a customer will consider making a purchase so having multiple places where they might see your branded advertising or remarketing for a certain product will help them convert.

If there’s a tactic or strategy that you’ve used to help get your business off the ground, let us know in the comments section.

If you’d like to learn more about setting up your own online shop, you can speak to our ecommerce experts on 0333 004 0333 or request a callback here.

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Doba Review: A Marketplace Filled With Qualified Dropshippers

If you've ever tried to dropship, you know that there are several obstacles you may run into. First of all, there are some services that offer dropshipping from places like India and China. These are sometimes great, but it's not uncommon to find that some of these suppliers and manufacturers are not reputable, or they take forever to ship to your country because of how far it is. Then you have the process of finding suppliers yourself. That's why we want to complete a Doba review. Doba is a tool for linking merchants to suppliers, especially those that dropship.

Not all suppliers do the whole dropshipping thing, and even when you find some that do, it's tricky streamlining your process without some sort of automated website plugin or app. However, Doba seems to solve all of these problems. In this Doba review, I'll guide you through what Doba offers, while also going through the benefits, pricing, and customer support options.

Doba Review: What's it all About?

As with all dropshipping, Doba allows you to source products individually, without having to spend money on bulk purchases. When a customer comes to your site and makes a purchase, Doba notifies the supplier and only sends out the products ordered.

Keep in mind that dropshipping often requires you to either take a cut in your own margins or increase pricing for your customers, since there's not much wiggle room when you're not buying in bulk. However, there are plenty of niches where the products rely more on perceived value than pricing you can cross-reference online within seconds. So, I would recommend seeking out those perceived value products (like jewelry or furniture) to have more success with dropshipping.

That said, this Doba review will show you how the service does a good job of keeping costs low and matching you up with suppliers that carry the products you want to sell. Doba has a marketplace of suppliers that are vetted and ready to partner with your online store.

Here's how it would work if you wanted to start a dropshipping store with Doba:

1. Start searching on the Doba marketplace and find the products you want to sell in your store.
2. Create an export of those product listings to transfer all of the details (like pictures, prices, and descriptions) to your online store.
3. Make a sale to one of your customers, then pay Doba for the product. This is a crucial step in dropshipping, since you're not paying upfront for anything.
4. The supplier gets a notification to ship the item directly to your customer.
5. The profits from your sale are deposited into your account.

The Doba process is really quite similar to other dropshipping apps on the market. The main difference is how Doba interviews and examines each of the manufacturers and suppliers to ensure that your online store isn't getting screwed over with long shipping times or unreliable suppliers. Keep reading to learn what else we found out from our Doba review.

Doba Pros and Cons

Doba is an attractive, efficient, and easy-to-use product. It can help you find that educational resources you need to keep transactional fee and shipping fee costs low. The website is very easy to navigate and understand, plus, there’s a free trail option to get you started.

However, not everyone will be well-suited to this drop shipping service. It’s not the lowest cost option around, and there are various unhappy reviews online. Here are the pros and cons you need to consider before you determine whether you can make Doba work for you.

Pros 👍

• The website is easy to navigate and understand
• Everything is very user-friendly and efficient
• Educational resources mean you can learn how to grow fast
• Drop shipping service and business tools included
• Lessons available on how to export data etc
• 100s of shopping cart options to choose from
• Easy to customize your inventory for quick reference
• Low inventory alerts stop you from over-selling
• Free trial makes it easy to test the waters before you invest
• Phone number available for customer support

Cons 👎

• It’s a membership site, and becoming a member isn’t cheap
• Doba is one of the more expensive options for dropshippers
• Money back guarantee is difficult to claim
• Products are expensive and difficult to compete with on marketplaces
• Not everyone has the best opinion of Doba

Doba Review: The Best Features

At the time of this article, Doba has partnered with hundreds of suppliers and offers over 2 million products for you to try out for your store. Choose from several categories, including automotive, apparel, books, electronics, and sports.

The most unique parts of Doba involve pricing and the marketplace. It's really easy to find millions of products in the Doba marketplace, some of which ship from the USA so your customers don't have to wait long. In addition, the pricing for many of the products is low enough that you can compete with companies on Amazon and pass along some savings to your customers.

As for the more technical features that come with Doba, here are the tools that I feel stand out the most:

Doba Review Feature: A Direct Integration Into Your Online Store

I'm pretty amazed at how quick and easy it is to search around the Doba marketplace to locate something you want to sell. Once you select a product and decide to move it to your store, there's an option to immediately push the product information to your online store. What's great is that there is already a description, title, pricing, and pictures. Many of these are pulled from the manufacturer (so they aren't the best quality,) but you at least get the product details for rewriting later. I've noticed that most of the items have plenty of pictures, although I would still try to take more real-life photos of the products after setting up a site and choosing my product collection.

Another great part about the direct integration with your store is that you can bulk import and export large product lists. Doba compiles a list of all items you'd like to sell, then eventually you can click on the Export button to bring that product list into your store.

No Need To Store or Ship Your Products

But what happens to all of those products that you import into your online store? How is a sale processed and when should your customers expect to receive their orders?

Yes, Doba integrates with your online store, but it also has the unique advantage of actually storing, packaging, and shipping your products.

This is the beauty of dropshipping. It's a system where the supplier is responsible for all of the production logistics. Your main focus is to run an effective online store and market the products so that both you and the supplier get more sales.

So, with the direct integration to your website and all of the storage, packaging, and shipping being handled by Doba, it makes for a fluid process and leaves you open to expand your store to the best of your ability. We also learned in our Doba review that the company does a wonderful job of keeping costs as close as possible to wholesale pricing. This is usually not the case when it comes to dropshipping companies.

Advanced Searching and Filtering

The advanced searching and filtering comes as a great surprise, since I've tested several dropshipping marketplaces that can be nightmares when it comes to finding your products. Doba has so many products to choose from that it has implemented a fast, beautiful filtering process. For instance, I was able to select sporting goods, go to camping, then search for cooking gear. The filtering is similar to Amazon, where they seem to have every product category you could imagine.

Proactive Inventory Alerts

The inventory alerts are set up by you, the store owner, by stating a threshold of when you would like to get an alert when inventory gets too low. So, you might have a pair of socks that runs out frequently. You would tell Doba to alert you when the socks are down to five pairs. Once you get the email, you could remove it from your store so that no one gets mad at you for selling an out of stock product.

Bulk Inventory Exporting

When you start curating a collection of products to sell in your store it becomes obvious that you need a way to organize all of these items. Your inventory is showcased in a nice list that you can rearrange and manage to see things like quantity and in-stock items.

Not only that, but the inventory area of the Doba dashboard has a tool to bulk export all of the products in the list to your online store. There is also the option to send this bulk export list to any marketplace of your choice. Therefore, you might sync all of your products with places like Amazon or Etsy.

Data Reports with Full Customization

All of your sales data is stored on the Doba dashboard, meaning that you as the business owner can always access this information by simply logging online. However, this is a completely different interface than your online platform.

It would be useful to have all of the sales data in a platform like Shopify or Bigcommerce as well. That's why Doba includes a custom data export feature to avoid the hassle of working with spreadsheets and trying to import those spreadsheets into your ecommerce platform.

Here's how it works: you can navigate to your data export page, then select sales information or maybe an inventory feed to export. After that, you choose your online store's ecommerce platform and the proper formatting. The export file is then automatically generated. So, it doesn't matter if you have Volusion, Magento, or Shopify–Doba exports to all of the big dogs. During our Doba review, we realized just how great the system integrates with other platforms.

The Elite Seller Report

The Elite Seller Report is like Doba's newsletter. It has wonderful information about deals, trends, and discounts. There's a curated product list and suggestions for which items to choose to get the most profit. You can even look at supplier scorecards to decide who to work with.

Trending and Seasonal Discounts from Suppliers

One of the exclusive parts of being a Doba member is the fact that you receive all sorts of email newsletters, tips, and information regarding your suppliers.

My favorite email that goes out from Doba is one that highlights deals from some of the suppliers that work with Doba. These deals come in all the time, but they are based on trending products or seasonal discounts that pop up every once in a while.

If you notice that one of the products could be sold in your store, you can take advantage of the discount and get more profits for your own company. What's also great is that Doba will sometimes highlight new suppliers in certain categories and give out discounts from those suppliers.

A Scorecard for All Suppliers

If you've ever tried dropshipping through places like AliExpress, you know that finding reputable suppliers isn't exactly the easiest task. Sure, once you find a great supplier on sites like that it becomes much easier. But you often have to guess and check to see which suppliers follow up, deliver on time, and make quality products.

Doba is a whole different story, because each supplier has a report card with detailed performance data from the past. This way, you can make a decision based on what research Doba has already done for you. Think of Doba as your personal gatekeeper who makes sure that you don't get stuck with a supplier that flakes out.

When you look at the performance data from a supplier you can check everything from fulfillment rates to processing times and return policies to shipping carrier options. It truly is one of the most valuable assets for a dropshipping operation.

Doba Review Feature: A Curated List of High-margin Products

Dropshipping is great because you don't have to spend any upfront capital to buy wholesale products–and it's not required for you to spend time or money on packaging and shipping.

That being said, there are still so many products to choose from. You need to find products that fit your brand image, and it's important to find items that are high quality and will yield you a profit.

You could complete this research yourself, but Doba makes it so much easier by providing a list of high-margin products for you to sell.

In short, you can contact Doba to have the in-house sourcing experts construct a list just for your company. They then return with the most in-demand, high-margin items in the niche that you sell.

Doba Review: The Pricing

In terms of pricing, the benefit of going with Doba is that the individual product pricing gets pretty close to what you would expect from a wholesale purchase. Therefore, you can be competitive with other companies that are also selling similar products. For instance, I started looking for camping gear on Doba and stumbled upon some camping cookware sets. Currently, the pricing from Doba is listed at $10.09 without any shipping costs. Not only that, but it's shipping from the USA and most of these sets sell for $25 to $40 on Amazon.

As you can see, there's an advantage to having a Doba membership. But that's the catch–you have to pay for a monthly subscription. Now, for a thriving business, this isn't going to be a problem at all. $29 per month for access to wholesale-like prices can be made up with a few sales each month. However, some startups might find this expensive.

Anyway, let's take a look at the pricing plans:

• Basic – $29 per month gets you a $0.99 per-order fee, access to millions of products in the marketplace, access to hundreds of suppliers, a community Q&A, Doba Deals in a weekly email, live training webinars, and email support.
• Advanced – $69 per month for everything in basic, along with eBay data export, an Elite seller report, and live chat support.
• Pro – $249 per month for everything in the previous plans, an Amazon data export, batch order upload, custom data export, street price data, and direct phone support.
• Enterprise – For this plan, you have to contact Doba for custom rates, but it has some interesting features like the API integration, shared FTP data transfers, a lower per-order fee, unlimited exports, a dedicated client success manager, and merchandising services.

A free 14-day trial is available for you to test out. However, Doba does pull that old move of asking for your credit card to gain access to the free trial. Then it has a disclaimer that says it's mainly to help service customers better–which we all know is nonsense.

Regardless, I've tested out the free trial and you can definitely stop payment before the trial is over. Doba has a Cancellation link right in your Account settings.

Doba Review: The Customer Support

The customer support, as outlined in the pricing, depends on the plan you decide to pay for. For instance, one plan gets you email support, while a step up provides live chat support. If you go up even one more plan there's phone support. Finally, the Enterprise plan members gain access to a dedicated client success manager.

Other than that, retailer and partner API documentation is provided for integrating with the system and allowing you to customize the way you sell. The Doba company is located in Utah, and the main support and sales emails are listed on the Doba website.

 

I also like that Doba provides a beautiful Resources page for users to read whitepapers, infographics, business guides, and much more. It also seems like Doba is active on some social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. So, you might be able to learn some things from those or get in contact with the company through social media.

Who is Doba Best For?

Doba is a powerful tool for dropshippers who want to sell products fast.

If you’re a marketer with lots of experience, but you don’t have much time to build a company online, then Doba products could be right for you. To be successful with Doba, you will need to know the basics about wholesale prices, and how to encourage sales through the right shopping carts.

It’s also important to understand how you’re going to make your business stand out. If you want to sell through big sites like Amazon and eBay, there are a lot of prices out there that might be difficult for you to beat.

If you don’t know how to stand out on Google, and you don’t have a lot of experience with dropshipping, then Doba.com might not be right for you. The membership fees can make it hard to make money with this middleman company if you’re not experienced.

It’s also worth noting that although Doba is excellent for product sourcing, you’ll still need to know how to sell products quickly and effectively. Doba’s strengths are in things like usability, and how easy it is to link to things like PayPal. You also get the benefits of being able to easily export product information and enjoy time-saving integrations with shopping carts.

If you know how to get the best results out of your dropshipping supplier, then Doba is an excellent choice. It has a good rating with the BBB (better business bureau) and it’s not a fake site or scam. You can really find dropship suppliers to help you build your business.

To succeed, you just need to know how to use those dropshipping suppliers to sell items at a higher price. If you know how to make the most of your inventory list, and you can sell through your own website, rather than online marketplaces, then Doba could make you a decent profit. Like most leading tools, such as Salehoo, it’s best to start with a free trial and see how you feel before you do anything.

Doba Review: Conclusion

If you're tired of super slow shipping times with dropshipping, Doba might be for you. If you hate the high pricing that often comes with dropshipping, you should seriously consider Doba. It might be a little too expensive for startups, but most of the time you should be able to make up the monthly costs. Overall, the Doba platform has so many products and reasonable prices that it has to be one of, if not the best, dropshipping solution out there.

If you have any questions about this Doba review, let us know in the comments.

The post Doba Review: A Marketplace Filled With Qualified Dropshippers appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

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MoonClerk Review: Recurring Payments Made Simple (Sep 2020)

Looking for a tool, you can rely on to manage recurring and one-off payments with ease?

There are plenty of options out there these days. After all, the growth of the internet and the availability of mobile payments means that virtually anyone can set up their own store and start making sales, whenever and wherever they like. All they need is the right payment processing solution, and they're ready to go.

MoonClerk is just one of the many payment processing services designed for small and mid-sized companies on the market today. It's a cloud-based offering (which means that everything operates over the internet). What's more, this tool comes with access to everything from mobile payment management features, invoicing, recurring billing, and online transaction support.

Whether you need something to handle single payments, subscriptions, donations, or something else entirely, MoonClerk allows users to design their own customizable payment strategies and embed them into their business websites. You can also share payment links via live chat, SMS, emails, and other methods to request payments for customers.

What is MoonClerk?

So, what exactly is MoonClerk?

As we mentioned above, MoonClerk is a payment processing solution that reduces some of the hassle associated with running a digital business. There are MoonClerk strategies to suit every style of pricing model, from one-off payments, to subscriptions.

The online application offers easy access to tools and strategies for growing an effective digital store. MoonClerk even has it’s own knowledgebase at http://help.mooncler.com to get you started. Whether you’re completing one-time or recurring transactions, MoonClerk will help you to manage your day-to-day payments securely and conveniently.

MoonClerk benefits from a positive reputation thanks to its versatility and consistent reliability. The system offers a selection of seamless and hassle-free solutions for payment processing. What’s more, it doesn’t matter whether users are in the field, in-office, or anywhere else. MoonClerk gets you paid wherever your business might go.

MoonClerk operates on top of the Stripe payment processor – one of the most popular payment processers in the world. Because Stripe is one of the largest and most secure ways to manage transactions, Moon Clerk can offer today’s businesses excellent peace of mind. What’s more, MoonClerk is available anywhere Stripe services are available.

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MoonClerk Pros and Cons

Just like any SaaS solution, MoonClerk comes with a variety of positive and negative factors to consider. This powerful payment processing solution comes with a variety of payment methods, and access to various tools, like reports to improve the insights you get from Google analytics.

MoonClerk is easy to use, and highly customizable, so you can ensure that it’s perfectly suited to your business. However, that doesn’t mean that MoonClerk will be the right payment processor for every company. Here are some pros and cons to consider.

Pros 👍

• Easy to use: You don’t need any technical expertise to excel with MoonClerk, or any insight into how to program code. Businesses of any size can tap into the functionality of the system. MoonClerk can even host your online presence for you.
• No merchant account required: You can start using the software immediately. You can even receive your payments into your accounts within a matter of minutes.
• Customization: MoonClerk makes it easy to customize the shopping experience to reflect your brand. For instance, you can add different logos, colors, and fonts to your interface.
• Complete control: Business owners have excellent control over their organizations. You can set parameters for digital downloads, and trial periods, and track various other parts of your transactions.
• Security: MoonClerk protects your payments and online transactions through state-of-the-art security solutions. These solutions or on the same level as bank-level security, so you know you’re safe.
• Compatible with various tools: MoonClerk can integrate with and work alongside a variety of different tools. This makes it excellent for combining various aspects of your website.

Cons 👎

• Specifically connected to Stripe: Stripe is one of the most popular payment system solutions in the world. However, if you’re not a fan of Stripe, then you can’t switch to a different payment option with MoonClerk.
• Available in some countries: MoonClerk is available in all of the countries where you can access Stripe. However, this will mean that some countries will still miss out on MoonClerk functionality.
• Customers can’t choose their own preferences: If you’re running a non-profit where customers can choose the amount that they want to donate each month, your clients will have to come to you to arrange the update.

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MoonClerk Review: Features

MoonClerk was created by two men, Ryan Wood, and Dodd Caldwell.

The pair said that they wanted to create the service because they were looking for something similar that they could use themselves. Before MoonClerk arrived in the marketplace, it was challenging to set up recurring payment schedules.

According to Caldwell, before he began working on MoonClerk, was building non-profit software for businesses through an organization that he had built himself, “Bellstrike.” When he was unable to find a software solution that made it easy for him to establish recurring payments, he set about making one himself.

Some of the most impressive features of the resulting MoonClerk software are:

• Customizable payment form creation
• Adaptable branding
• Coupon and voucher creation
• Data export
• Website-embeddable payment forms
• Customer information storage
• Payment history
• Recurring payment plans
• Custom payment options
• Payment activity statistics

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MoonClerk Review: Pricing

No matter what kind of software you're investing in for your company, the price has to be right.

Fortunately, for most businesses, MoonClerk pricing is relatively simple to understand. There's just one subscription plan to choose from, and your monthly rates will adjust automatically according to the sales volume that you're dealing with.

Prices for MoonClerk range from $15 per month for transactions worth up to $2,000, to around $500 per month for up to $150,000 worth of transactions.

Essentially, the more you earn, the more you pay to process everything.

Additionally, MoonClerk also charges additional third-party processing fees of 2.9% plus 30 cents for your card transactions too. These are the same processing fees that you'll see in Stripe, the payment platform that MoonClerk is built on top of.

If you decide that you want to start selling digital products, then you're going to need to pay a little extra for something called “digital delivery” too. This is an optional extension feature for $15 per month, which comes with unlimited delivery bandwidth and storage. Additionally, it allows you to upload any content type you like, from videos to eBooks, and sell it to customers on a subscription basis, or via a one-off payment.

You can even adjust the style of the download page for your digital content so that it matches your branding elsewhere.

Notably, there are a few extra things you should be aware of regarding MoonClerk pricing.

• Transaction fees are lower for US-based bank account transactions through ACH. Stripe only charges a fee of 0.8% here, with a cap of $5 for payments made from ACH.
• There are no contracts or set-up fees involved when you start using MoonClerk. However, the MoonClerk pricing you pay will adjust automatically according to your transactions.
• There is a minimum monthly fee of $15 per month once you activate your account with MoonClerk, regardless of what your transaction volume might be.

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MoonClerk Review: Usability

Now that we've covered the basics of MoonClerk pricing, it's worth examining how easy it is to use this technology. Operating MoonClerk doesn't demand any specific technical-level skills or a knowledge of programming code – so that's a good start.

The solution has been designed to appeal to businesses no matter how small, regardless of how much background you might have with using apps and payment processing software. You don't even need your own website to get started, because MoonClerk will host everything for you.

Additionally, users can get started straight away by using their software as soon as they make a purchase. You don't need a merchant account to be set up, and you can begin creating payment forms to add to your site whenever you like.

The benefits of MoonClerk usability include:

• No need for any coding knowledge
• Set up in minutes for any business
• No merchant account necessary
• All hosting and security provided by MoonClerk
• Access your software on any mobile or desktop device

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MoonClerk Review: Taking Payments

MoonClerk is a simple solution for using Stripe to take payments from customers in a range of different business structures. Non-developers and smaller companies can easily set up their web presence using MoonClerk, and there's the option to customize the payment processing experience in a range of ways. For instance, merchants can:

• Allow payers to choose their own recurring payment options
• Set custom charge days, frequencies, and trial periods
• Create installment plans for payers
• Charge recurring surcharges and upfront fees
• Create flexible vouchers and coupons
• Use MoonClerk as a virtual terminal
• Send payment links via invoices, social media, email, SMS and more

Additionally, MoonClerk benefits from being able to accept payments in various forms, which makes the MoonClerk pricing more competitive. You can take payments via ACH (e-Check), debit cards, credit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Microsoft Pay too.

MoonClerk supports monthly, quarterly, and annual recurring payments, as well as one-time fees. When you're just getting started for the first time, the application will walk you through the process of designing a checkout experience that's perfectly suited to your brand and customers. You can also design your form using several options related to the checkout process. For instance, you can decide whether you need to add a standard percentage alongside the total or charge a specific shipping fee.

You also have the freedom to determine what day in the month a recurring payment should be deducted from a customer.

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MoonClerk Review: Transfers

After you've created your form and deducted whatever necessary payments from your customer, you'll be able to provide your own banking information to Stripe Connect. This will allow you to accept payments from your customers through Stripe.

The fact that MoonClerk is built on top of Stripe is a positive thing for some customers, particularly those who have had their accounts frozen by other companies like PayPal and Square in the past. Stripe generally ensures that businesses and merchants get their money within 2 business days of a successful charge going through. Additionally, funds are automatically transferred into your bank account on a rolling 2-day basis. This means that if someone sends you cash on Tuesday, you should have it with your bank by Thursday on the same week.

Transfers can take a little bit longer if you're accepting ACH payments. Once a checkout is complete with an e-check, the first payment will take up to 5 business days to complete. It will also take up to 7 business days for your payments to be reflected in the available balance that you have on Stripe.

Overall, our MoonClerk review found that transfers and receiving money from MoonClerk are simple enough.

👉 Benefits include:

• Being able to send funds to your bank account automatically
• Integrating with hundreds of third-party providers
• Giving payers control over their accounts
• Retrying failed payments automatically
• Filter and exporting payment data

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MoonClerk Review: Form Builder

Probably one of the most essential tools you'll use on MoonClerk is the payment form builder. This solution is designed to help companies and merchants request fees from clients in a range of different ways. You can even embed your own payment form on your website.

To build a standard payment form, all you need to do is click on the “Forms” link at the top of your navigation menu and create a new form for your product. You can add titles, descriptions, and sale prices, as well as itemized prices for various products, and suggested prices for donation forms.

When you want to customize your payment forms, click on the “Themes” tab, and you can easily build specific structures for certain times throughout the year.

To improve the experience that you give your target audience, MoonClerk also supports email notifications which allow you to send payment confirmations and send receipts to customers. You'll also have the option to enhance your relationship with customers with limited checkout deals and coupons too.

The forms are highly customizable, with various unique fields that you can experiment with. If you're looking to collect specific information from your customer, MoonClerk also allows you to do that. This is very different from the kind of experience that you'd get from PayPal recurring payments, where there's no option to collect custom information.

MoonClerk Review: Branding

The MoonClerk form builder is excellent for companies that want to create personalized brand experiences for their customers. You can choose to add your own logo, change the colors of your forms, and even implement specific fonts to give your interface a more unique experience. Additionally, there are plenty of core parameters to be configured, included trial periods, start dates, durations, checkouts, and more.

To design a form that matches your company's branding, click on the Themes tab in the top menu and make as many different themes as you like, each with their custom background, image, logo, fonts, and custom CSS solutions too.

There's even the option to remove the form title if you want to ensure that the checkout page blends into your website as well as possible.

Remember that once you've built a form for your company, you can preview how it's going to look to your target customers by clicking on the name of the form and selecting the “Preview” button. This makes sure that you're not going to end up publishing a payment form that looks unprofessional or outdated.

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MoonCerk Review: Digital Delivery

If your company is selling digital products like ebooks, webinars, or videos, instead of physical items, then it's worth looking into digital delivery. The MoonClerk pricing for digital distribution is $15 per month, which means that it's going to cost you a little extra to take this route.

However, once you've set up your new service, you'll have the option to sell digital products easily, and manage the entire buyer journey from within your MoonClerk account too. The MoonClerk software even takes care of sending the digital product to your customers.

👉 With digital delivery, you can:

• Store unlimited content in your MoonClerk account with unlimited bandwidth for deliveries
• Sell access to digital content in a range of formats either with one-time payments or subscriptions.
• Upload any content type, including eBooks, videos, and audio.
• Style the download and payment page so that it matches your brand perfectly.

When you have digital delivery set up, you'll be able to design payment forms just like you would for any other product.

After your customer has completed the form and entered the payment, they'll receive an email with a link that allows them to access whatever package you've created for them.

The process is very simple and straightforward. What's more, the fact that you can customize the digital download page makes the whole experience feel a lot more professional.

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MoonClerk Review: Integrations

One of the things that makes MoonClerk so impressive is the fact that there are so many great ways to improve your experience with the provider. MoonClerk offers a range of direct integrations with various tools like CRM and website builders so that you can combine your sales environment according to your individual strategy.

With the right MoonClerk integrations, you can save information about sales to your CRM, send out custom emails to repeat customers, and so much more. Some of the most popular integrations include:

• MailChimp
• Convertkit
• Google Sheets
• Constant Contact
• ActiveCampaign
• Tapfiliate
• ShipRobot
• Salesforce
• Quickbooks

Intended to be more than just a basic payment processing solution, MoonClerk is packed full of access to other tools and features that will help you to make the most of your business. There are even in-built extra tools like data imports, developer options, and coupon creation too.

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MoonClerk Review: Security

One thing that makes MoonClerk pricing easier to bare, is the fact that it comes with the kind of security you need in today's competitive world. The MoonClerk brand advertises its security as being “bank-level,” which means that you get:

• Level 1 PCI compliance
• Secure hosting
• Full SSL encryption

Online transactions and payments are completely protected by MoonClerk using a range of high-level security protocols that are on par with the leading banks around the world. This higher-level security means that you and your customers can rest assured that the checkout process is as simple and secure as possible. You also won't need to provide any additional security measures to improve peace of mind.

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MoonClerk Review: Customer Service

No matter how effective and intuitive your payment processing solution might be, there's always a chance that you'll need a little extra help from the customer support team.

MoonClerk is still a relatively small company, which means that they don't have the most comprehensive customer service we've ever seen. However, the personalized service level offered by this company is second to none. You can send the team an email or click on the small green chat tab on the bottom right-hand side of your screen to reach out to a member of the team as soon as possible.

Instant chat isn't available all of the time, but you always have email to turn to if you can't reach anyone. Additionally, there's a helpful blog page and help centre so you can find answers to questions yourself too.

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MoonClerk Alternatives

MoonClerk is an excellent recurring billing platform for companies that want to set up simple and customized solutions for accepting client payments. However, this tool isn't going to be the right choice for every company. You might find that MoonClerk is lacking some of the features you need for a complete payment processing solution, which means that it's worth looking at some of the alternatives on the market.

Here are just some of the options you can consider.

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Square Payments

If you're looking for a payment processing solution that's perfect for your brick and mortar stores, then Square is exactly the solution that you need. If your business accepts credit cards on-location, then Square is much easier to use as you can access a range of hardware options for taking fees from clients. It's a little more expensive to use Square than some of the other options we've mentioned above, and there are some issues with getting customer support at times, but it's a great tool all-around.

Pros 👍

• Excellent for in-person billing
• Plenty of hardware options available
• Easy to use
• Lots of added extras

Cons 👍

• More expensive than some alternatives
• Not great when it comes to customer support

👉 Read our full Square reviews.

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Chargebee

Chargebee is another recurring billing and subscription software that allows you to automate your recurring billing processes to better manage those long-term payments. You can send invoices, add notes to specific payment requests, and even track your unpaid invoices to ensure that you don't miss out on an essential payment. Unfortunately, there's no free trial to get you started.

Pros 👍

• Recurring billing is easy to use
• Advanced invoices available
• Themes for hosted pages
• EU VAT support

Cons 👍

• No free trial
• Not as advanced as some other options

👉 Read our Chargebee review.

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Zuora

Designed for larger enterprises, Zuora is one of the major competitors in the world of subscription businesses. It's generally used among Fortune 500 companies and ensures that large companies can power recurring payments with ease. Unfortunately, Zuora requires substantial IT knowledge and a lengthy onboarding process. It can be an excellent solution for automating billing, but it's also costly compared to some of the other options on the market.

Pros 👍

• Stunning and highly customizable payment options
• Great for larger businesses
• Excellent security and performance
• Designed for Fortune 500

Cons 👍

• Expensive
• Lots of coding knowledge required

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Chargify

Chargify is another well-known tool designed to help companies accept payments for subscriptions and recurring fees. This tool gives organizations the power to effectively manage a host of subscribers in a unique and intuitive environment. The tiered pricing means that it's easy to understand precisely how much you need to set aside for your software each month.

Pros 👍

• Plenty of add-ons and extras
• Metered usage with tiered pricing
• One-time charges available
• Calendar billing

Cons 👍

• Not as advanced as other tools
• Updating contact information is difficult

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MoonClerk vs Stripe: What’s the Difference?

MoonClerk runs off the Stripe payment processing system. This might leave you wondering why you would pay for a monthly subscription to MoonClerk when you could just use Stripe directly.

Crucially, there’s a big difference between what Stripe and MoonClerk can offer.

Stripe is a payment processing solution that handles wen and mobile payments for merchants. With Stripe, you can access a flexible environment for accepting payments over the internet. Stripe offers access to things like APIs and integrations that allow businesses to instantly integrate payment processing into their websites and apps.

Using Stripe alone, you could create a payment portal for your customers, and Stripe will handle the back-end security and transfers for you. However, Stripe doesn’t offer the extra support that you get from MoonClerk when it comes to setting up and running your business.

Without MoonClerk, you wouldn’t be able to set up recurring payments with Stripe, or memberships for your customers. You would also need to make a website and host it separately, because Stripe only offers the payment processing, not the hosting functionality.

MoonClerk works on all mobile and desktop devices, helping teams to build a genuine online presence. The system also takes care of security and privacy protection and gives business owners more flexibility on their payment methods. You can also add custom branding to your transactions with MoonClerk – that’s something you don’t get with Stripe alone.

Through MoonClerk integrations with tools like Mailchimp and QuickBooks, you can also automate a variety of business processes. For instance, you can track your tax and vat requirements, filter and export business data, and experiment with developer tools.

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MoonClerk vs ChargeBee

Both MoonClerk and ChargeBee offer payment processing and management solutions. While both of these software options are excellent for business leaders, the right one for you will depend on what kind of functionality you need.

For instance, if you’re running a brick and mortar company, then MoonClerk already has a lot of experience supporting companies just like yours. MoonClerk is also an excellent choice for companies that feel comfortable with the Stripe payment processing experience.

MoonClerk is popular for donation websites that have to set up simple recurring payments for donations. With MoonClerk, you can accept donations, set up recurring and one-time payments, send payment notifications, and so much more. There’s also a payer portal where you can send customers a link to a page where they can update their credit card information.

MoonClerk also offers payment forms, and basic integrations with tools like MailChimp and Google Analytics. On the other hand, ChargeBee might be a better option if you’re a startup creating a web application that requires a more robust API, recurring billing, and complete control over user flow.

ChargeBee offers plenty of access to things like APIs and webhooks for customization. There are also integrations already available with Salesforce and QuickBooks. ChargeBee supports detailed reporting, support for global taxes, MRR, churn, and cohort analysis. There are also enterprise-level plans for complex billing models, and automated accounting.

ChargeBee benefits from multiple payment gateways, including Braintree and Authorize.Net, whereas MoonClerk is only suitable for use with Stripe.

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MoonClerk vs. PayPal

Comparing a solution like MoonClerk to something like PayPal is a little complicated. MoonClerk is a solution for managing ongoing and recurring payments. It helps businesses to gain more control over transactions, while also providing payment processing through Stripe.

On the other hand, PayPal is a comprehensive payment processing solution. PayPal does offer recurring payments as an additional solution for specific companies. While both PayPal and MoonClerk offer recurring payments, you can’t create your own forms with PayPal to collect customer information. However, this is something you can do with MoonClerk.

The information you collect from your MoonClerk forms also appears within your dashboard, so you can access it wherever you need it. PayPal also has more issues with people having “frozen accounts”. Stripe generally delivers a more reliable experience for customers that want to receive money 2 days after a successful charge. Funds are automatically transferred to a bank account on a 2-day rolling basis with MoonClerk and Stripe.

MoonClerk also built its technology from the ground up with smaller businesses in mind. It’s ideal for people without a lot of technical know-how. On the other hand, PayPal can be a little more complicated to navigate. There also aren’t a lot of options for integrations or extensibility with PayPal.

Another major difference between PayPal and MoonClerk is the cost. You need to start your base monthly fee with PayPal at around $20 if the other person doesn’t already have PayPal. MoonClerk is a little cheaper, at $15. Additionally, if you’re redirecting customers to PayPal to check out, they’ll often get a set of pop-up ads which are designed to promote PayPal instead of your company.

With PayPal recurring payments, you also have a problem when someone signs up for a recurring plan, as it’s hard to transfer customers over into a new system. Because MoonClerk builds on Strike, transferring customer data is easier.

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Is MoonClerk Safe?

Choosing the right technology for accepting online payments isn’t always easy.

You need to ensure that you’re not only choosing the technology that’s easy to use and reliable. It’s also important to find something that’s going to protect you and your customers during these all-important transactions.

If you’re concerned about using MoonClerk, you can find some extra information on the safety of the technology and it’s features at http://help.moonclerk.com or you can contact the team. The customer service group will help to answer your questions about everything from pricing plans, to encryption.

In general, MoonClerk takes security very seriously. There’s full high-level SSL encryption for the checkout process. Additionally, all browsers interact with MoonClerk payment forms using HTTPS. Essentially, you’re getting bank-level security every time you use MoonClerk to take a payment.

Both you and your customer should be able to rest assured that data isn’t going to leak anywhere. Additionally, PCI compliance is included too. The PCI compliance included with MoonClerk is available at a service provider level. This is the most significant service level available. It means that all credit card numbers are encrypted.

Check out the MoonClerk website to learn a little more about how security works. The good news is that you should enjoy a relatively reliable and safe experience for your business and it’s customers, provided that you use the service well.

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MoonClerk Review: Conclusion

So, is MoonClerk right for you?

Well, it's currently one of the leading options for recurring billing software on the market, used by companies all around the world. MoonClerk features a range of fantastic solutions to help you make the most out of your business, from customizable invoices to the option to take mobile payments. There are even fantastic personalized forms available too.

Regardless of what you want to sell, a reliable payment processing application will always be a crucial component of running an effective business. MoonClerk allows you to get paid faster by ensuring that all you need to do is send someone a link to have them clear their invoice immediately. You can also automate your back-office by setting up recurring payments so that MoonClerk takes care of charging your clients according to your schedule.

If you've ever had to handle recurring payments and invoicing manually before, you'll know how valuable a system like this one can be. Another fantastic thing about MoonClerk is that it's all designed to suit beginners and smaller businesses. That means that you don't need an advanced IT team to use the software, you can instead enjoy the benefits of a solution that's easy to set up and use in a matter of minutes. Without entering a line of code, you can have your payment strategy up and running within 5 minutes.

The post MoonClerk Review: Recurring Payments Made Simple (Sep 2020) appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

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Future Stores 2020

Agenda

Join Future Stores virtually this October to tackle the seemingly never-ending new challenges in the wake of the pandemic. We have gathered some of the best and brightest in retail to share with you how you can meet these challenges head on. All the top shelf Future Stores content available online from Europe’s leading retail innovators including; Costa, Lego, Benetton, Three, B&Q, Vodafone and Charlotte Tilbury.

Why should you stop and watch? Future Stores is providing everything you need to give you sure footing to get back up and running in an industry turned on its head. Get critical insights on proven in-store strategies to unlock the full potential of your bricks and mortar, remain competitive and safeguard your business for the future, all for free. 

Date: October 21-22

Booking with the code: NATIONFS2020

The post Future Stores 2020 appeared first on ECN | E-Commerce Nation.

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VTEX raises $225M at a $1.7B valuation for e-commerce solutions aimed at retailers and brands

Retailers and consumer brands are focused more than ever in their histories on using e-commerce channels to connect with customers: the global health pandemic has disrupted much of their traditional business in places like physical stores, event venues and restaurants, and vending machines, and accelerated the hunt for newer ways to sell goods and services. Today, a startup that’s been helping them build those bridges, specifically to expand into newer markets, is announcing a huge round of funding, underscoring the demand.

VTEX, which builds e-commerce solutions and strategies for retailers like Walmart and huge consumer names like AB InBev, Motorola, Stanley Black & Decker, Sony, Walmart, Whirlpool, Coca-Cola and Nestlé, has raised $225 million in new funding, valuing the company at $1.7 billion post-money.

The funding is being co-led by two investors, Tiger Global and Lone Pine Capital, with Constellation, Endeavour Catalyst and SoftBank also participating. It’s a mix of investors, with two leads, that offers a “signal” of what might come next for the startup, sad Amit Shah, the company’s chief strategy officer and general manager for North America.

“We’ve seen them invest in big rounds right before companies go public,” he said. “Now, that’s not necessarily happening here right now, but it’s a signal.” The company has been profitable and plans to continue to be, Shah said (making it one example of a SoftBank investment that hasn’t gone sour). Revenues this year are up 114% with $8 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) processed over platforms it’s built.

Given that VTEX last raised money less than a year ago — a $140 million round led by SoftBank’s Latin American Innovation Fund — the valuation jump for the startup is huge. Shah confirmed to us that it represents a 4x increase on its previous valuation (which would have been $425 million).

The interest back in November from SoftBank’s Latin American fund stemmed from VTEX’s beginnings. The company got its start building e-commerce storefronts and strategies for businesses that were hoping to break into Brazil — the B of the world’s biggest emerging “BRIC” markets — and the rest of Latin America. It made its name building Walmart in the region, and has continued to help run and develop that operation even after Walmart divested the asset, and it’s working with Walmart now in other regions outside the US, too, he added.

But since then, while the Latin American arm of the business has continued to thrive, the company has capitalized both on the funding it had picked up, and the current global climate for e-commerce solutions, to expand its business into more markets, specifically North America, EMEA and most recently Asia.

Revenues were growing at a rate of 50% a year before the pandemic ahead of it’s more recent growth this year of 114%, Shah said. “Of course, we would prefer Covid-19 not to be here, but it has had a good effect on our business. The arc of e-commerce has grown has impacted revenues and created that additional level of investor interest.”

VTEX’s success has hinged not just on catering to companies that have up to now not prioritized their online channels, but in doing so in a way that is more unified.

Consumer packaged goods have been in a multi-faceted bind because of the fragmented way in which they have grown. A drinks brand will not only manufacture on a local level (and sometimes, as in the case of, say, Coca-Cola, use different ingredient formulations), but they will often have products that are only sold in select markets, and because the audiences are different, they’ve devise marketing and distribution strategies on a local level, too. On top of all that, products like these have long relied on channels like retailers, restaurants, vending machines and more to get their products into the hands of consumers.

These days, of course, all of that has been disrupted: all the traditional channels they would have used to sell things are now either closed or seeing greatly reduced custom. And as for marketing: the rise of social networks has led to a globalization in messaging, where something can go viral all over the world and marketing therefore knows no regional boundaries.

So, all of this means that brands have to rethink everything around how they sell their products, and that’s where a company like VTEX steps in, building strategies and solutions that can be used in multiple regions. Among typical deals, it’s been working with AB InBev to develop a global commerce platform covering 50 countries (replacing multiple products from other vendors, typically competitors to VTEX include SAP, Shopify and Magento).

“CPG companies are seeking to standardize and make their businesses and lives a little easier,” Shah said. Typical work that it does includes building marketplaces for retailers, or new e-commerce interfaces so that brands can better supply online and offline retailers, or sell directly to customers — for example, with new ways of ordering products to get delivered by others. Shah said that some 200 marketplaces have now been built by VTEX for its customers.

(Shah himself, it’s worth pointing out, has a pedigree in startups and in e-commerce. He founded an e-commerce analytics company called Jirafe, which was acquired by SAP, where he then became the chief revenue officer of SAP Hybris.)

“We are excited to grow quickly in new and existing markets, and offer even more brands a platform that embraces the future of commerce, which is about being collaborative, leveraging marketplaces, and delivering customer experiences that are second-to-none,” said Mariano Gomide de Faria, VTEX co-founder and co-CEO, in a statement. “This injection of funding will undoubtedly support us in achieving our mission to accelerate digital commerce transformation around the world.”

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