Belgian Kazidomi, an online seller of organic products, gets most of its revenue from France. This affects their growth strategy and future plans.
Emphasis on healthy products
The company’s range of products consists of some 3,500 sustainable and organic items including cosmetics, food supplements and cleaning products. “The idea is that when they shop with us, the customer can find everything they would buy in a supermarket, except for fresh food“, CEO Emna Everard told LSA. The company only sells healthy products, and relies on experts in the field of nutrition and dermatology to determine whether a product will eventually make it into the online shop. “We usually do not accept refined sugars or preservatives”, she says.
About a year after its foundation, Kazidomi introduced a subscription system. The loyalty card costs 100 euros per year and entitles customers to discounts over the entire range. “Unlike traditional retail, which takes a margin on every product that is sold, we get our margins from selling subscriptions that allow us to finance our logistics costs”, says Everard. It took a lot of effort (and a lot of marketing budget) to convince customers of this system.
Meanwhile, however, Kazidomi has about 10,000 subscribers. “80 % of them are in France, our largest market. After that comes Belgium, with about 10 %.” The company also has customers based in the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The logistics centre is located in Vilvoorde, complete with a 2,000 m² warehouse.
Everard founded Kazidomi in 2016, together with Alain Etienne. The e-commerce platform now employs 25 people in France and Belgium. For the time being, Kazidomi is not yet making a profit: the initial goal was to be profitable by 2019, but at the moment, growth comes first. Turnover grew from 250,000 euros in 2017 to 4 million euros last year. The company now intends to be profitable in two years’ time.
