Gral Albania is an e-commerce company, inspired by the world giants adapted to the market physiognomy of Albania. They operate as an online marketplace, where sellers and buyers meet together to decide the best possible offers. There are around 10000 products uploaded to their website that customers can access very easily by placing an order.
By buying online at Gral, Albanian customers save money and time. There is no parking stress or long queues to pay the bill.
Its mission is to create the biggest online marketplace in Albania and offer a variety of products easily accessible to customers. They aim to sell everything that can be sold online. The key to their success is the passion for what they do.
All this amazing work is done by their team of professionals starting from customer service to sales, marketing, logistic, and finance.
They have launched their website www.gral.al updating and optimizing it each day with new products and plugins to offer a user-friendly platform. They are active on Facebook and Instagram too. The products are delivered within 48 hours everywhere in Albania and an after-sale support procedure is already in place.
Their business model includes both B2B and B2C categories. They form an extra sales channel to all physical stores or main suppliers who can increase their sales with no extra costs. B2C are their end customers, to whom they are extremely focused to offer a unique online buying experience by supporting them, giving advice on products, and helping them on product-related issues.
What was the challenge?
Gral’s team started their experience in e-commerce 6 years ago when they became part of the Kaymu project, Rocket Internet Group, in Albania. Then they understood that online shopping was a future trend that would change customer buying perception.
Therefore they wanted to launch an online platform to gather different sellers by offering their products at the best price and with a user-friendly platform.
They wanted to add value to the online buying process for customers to be satisfied and revisit their website.
They started small with 50 euro marketing budget and 1000 followers on social media. In the beginning, all work processes were done on their own. Later on, they started hiring and creating respective teams to handle the process.
What is the solution?
- The main processes Gral goes through now are:
- Seller agreement
- Photo-shooting
- Uploading in the website (full description, price)
- Marketing Ads
- Customer order placement
- Logistic pick up
- Delivery to customers’ address
- After-sales support
They are operating with WordPress, a platform that offers solutions and can be customized based on customer’s needs.
They offer a variety of products starting from clothing to electronics, books, and accessories and customers can easily access the website.
Due to the pandemic and all the challenges faced during quarantine, some of their plans were postponed and the business strategies changed. However, one of their projects is already functional, Emaki Albania, an online marketplace where customers can find everything related to electronics products, car accessories, working tools, home products, etc.
Expanding to Kosovo as a franchise is a next step that Gral is working on right now.
Also, as everything seems to return to normal, they will recreate their project Coupon.al.