An enriching webinar on C2C developed by the marketplace dedicated to children - Beebs
Morgan Hilmi (co-founder and CEO of Beebs) spoke about how he integrated the Silvr financing solution into his growth model, as well as the Scalapay fractional payment solution into his conversion funnel to optimize his sales on the first marketplace dedicated to children.
Silvr welcomed Morgan Hilmi (co-founder and CEO of Beebs) to study the case of this marketplace dedicated to second-hand products for children. To scale and finance its growth, Beebs relies on Silvr to finance its acquisition campaigns. To optimize conversions, the app uses the Italian unicorn Scalapay's free-of-charge 3-4 installment payment solution. These two players took an in-depth look at the Beebs customer case. Find the replay of the webinar here, and for a full review of this webinar, please click here.
Morgan Hilmi is the co-founder and CEO of Beebs, the first marketplace 100% dedicated to children. This app and C2C buying/selling site focuses on more than 400 product categories. Launched in November 2020, it features clothes, toys, school supplies, diaper packs (new, you’ll be glad to hear), etc. Their app now has more than one million users, with even more items on sale.
Anne-Laure Douillet is Head of Partnerships France at Scalapay. The Italian unicorn is a free-of-charge 3-4 installment payment solution developed to improve the user and customer shopping experience. This integrated solution helps to:
Mégane Lewis is Team Lead Account Manager at Silvr - the data-driven solution for digital companies (Ecommerce firms, SaaS companies). Silvr finances without dilution, and extremely flexibly, many expenditure items such as recruitment, digital marketing, inventory, etc., "so essentially the OPEX". By plugging into the technical stacks of digital businesses such as Shopify, Stripe or bank accounts, Silvr retrieves and analyzes this data to propose a financing offer in 48 hours according to the projection of future sales.
Silvr enters the corporate financing mix and finances, in this case, Beebs' Ads expenses. Mégane Lewis presented the ideal alternative financing complement for (already more than 300) digital companies. Silvr is even more useful in the midst of inflation and rising interest rates, during which traditional sources of financing are more difficult to activate. We’re thinking of bank debt (difficult to mobilize for digital entrepreneurs, due to lack of assets) and equity, through which Beebs has already raised €9M. Beebs has already been supported by Silvr for more than two financings of several hundred thousand euros. Where Beebs faces another challenge is to acquire both sides, the buyer's and the seller's. Because the cycle of use of the products found on the marketplace for children is ultimately quite short.
What are the seasonal patterns at Beebs? It's a real headache for entrepreneurs who need to know their key periods and therefore anticipate them. If the issue for the brand does not necessarily lie in the management of stocks (because, as a marketplace, that is out of their hands), it does lie in the visibility and relevance of marketing actions. Let's take the example of second-hand toys mentioned by Morgan; he is delighted to know that the second-hand economy is booming overall, which he supports by citing the increases seen in Q4.
However, Morgan specifies that Black Friday is a rather weak period for his marketplace. Inevitably, faced with substantial price drops on new items, the second-hand market is not at its strongest, in terms of sale prices, during these few exceptional days. Summer at Beebs is also a low period. The months of June, July and August are a time when people go out and don't stay home. As a result, sales of items are down and so are purchases.
It is therefore to compensate for these seasonal variations and the cash flow problems they bring that Morgan Hilmi called on Silvr. By financing Beebs' acquisition campaigns, the European leader in RBF helped Beebs to smooth out these expenses. The cash flow issue is "like many startups in the early years, when they are not yet profitable." With Silvr, the overlapping funding tranches and the scalable amount of these tranches have had a positive impact over time. In fact, by smoothing out the marketing expenses, they are easier to bear. And therefore, it enables cash to be freed up and invested in new expenditure items such as "the punctual or durable strengthening of teams or the investment in less agile marketing channels". Morgan Hilmi also mentions acquisition channels specific to the website (reminder: the site that serves as a showcase for the app) such as SEO.
During this exchange, Beebs, Scalapay and Silvr talked about the user experience, or UX (User Experience). It is an individual’s collection of feelings and perceptions resulting from their use of a product or service, from acquisition through conversion to retention. This user experience is mainly evaluated on two levels: usability and emotional connection.
This issue of user experience has very quickly emerged as crucial to the launch of Beebs. Why did this happen? Because this platform works in C2C (Customer-to-Customer). It is therefore all the more demanding, because it requires a great granularity to address all needs, however specific they may be. They have to respond to the demands of all parents as Beebs’ product verticals are numerous, as are the categories and the types of end-user. Newborns, infants, then 1, 2, 3 years old and above. And all this for sellers as well as buyers.
As Morgan Hilmi explains: "A parent may be looking for a brand that has made an impression on him or her, such as Jacadi or Kiabi, only to end up trying to resell these products once the garment is too small...". The requirements of C2C are therefore to offer an integrated experience from start to finish. That is to say, a simple and efficient process including putting the item on sale, discoverability of the items, payment, delivery or hand delivery. In addition, in less than 1% of the cases: to manage the after-sales service, including any disputes between the buyer and the seller.
This is where rich functionality is required, i.e. "always putting yourself in the shoes of the user." Whether it's in terms of brand experience or brand identity, Beebs' UX is also important in that they have to push second-hand items, which is not always obvious, especially since the young (and potentially fragile) target requires quality products, but - and this is Beebs' struggle - at an accessible price. Beebs can also be summed up by the desire to offer good quality products with a carbon footprint much lower than the same product new (second hobbyhorse of Beebs after affordability). Having become an important consideration in the decision to buy, it also correlates to the fact that this period of life is very demanding when it comes to first purchases (strollers, baby carriers, etc.).
Anne-Laure Douillet points out that ⅓ of French people used split payment in 2021, and that this flexibility is a conversion lever. "Moreover, it is necessary to inform the user so that they are aware and reassured upon arrival on site," she says – just like Beebs did via a banner below the purchase buttons.
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Published on
March 28, 2023
By
Antoine
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