Specialist
Former VP at Otto GmbH & Co KG
Agenda
- DACH growth outlook and regional expansion opportunities
- About You – operational model, competitive analysis vs Zalando (ETR: ZAL) and the threat from Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)
- About You’s TME (technology, media and enabling) segment outlook and brand uptake
- Unit economics analysis, including marketing, fulfilment and operating profit outlook
Questions
1.
About You forecasts a continuation of its strong 2020 growth into 2021, given the shift towards e commerce. What would normalised growth be for the company?
2.
Can you break down About You’s growth between the DACH area and the rest of Europe? You mentioned internationalisation as a growth leader.
3.
What is driving About You’s growth? Is it new customer acquisition or increased stickiness of existing customers? How sticky are customers that were acquired during the pandemic?
4.
Why do you think About You experiences strong retention and high usage via smartphones?
5.
About You works with influencers to redirect traffic onto the platform, but what is the threat of Instagram as a competitor? How sustainable will this model be once the Instagram cart checkout becomes more popular?
6.
Which countries present the greatest opportunity for international expansion, which you highlighted as one of About You’s key growth levers?
7.
Why has About You grown so successfully in eastern Europe? How easy is it to replicate that as the company rolls out across additional central European countries?
8.
To what extent is About You’s eastern European growth threatened by Zalando rolling out across 13 central and eastern European countries?
9.
Can we discuss the competitive landscape? You mentioned that About You could be a tech leader, which the company has considered. How good are its AI or machine learning capabilities at personalisation?
10.
Zalando is About You’s key competitor, at least for the DACH region. How do you think the company can compete vs Zalando in the core home markets?
11.
What is the typical brand overlap between About You and Zalando?
12.
Brand overlap is increasing, so why would a customer shop on About You vs Zalando if the same brands exist on both platforms?
13.
Who is the core About You customer? How does that compare to the Zalando customer?
14.
How does About You’s slightly younger customer base impact factors such as frequency, ASP or AOV? What differences might exist vs Zalando?
15.
How should About You perceive the threat of Amazon or other market competitors?
16.
How can About You defend its position in DACH vs Zalando, which is gaining market share in the region?
17.
What do you think are About You’s major category expansion opportunities? You mentioned category expansion as a growth opportunity.
18.
What might prevent About You from increasing third-party share in its sales mix? Zalando is very much ahead with the marketplace model, as you said.
19.
How long might it take for About You to achieve 50% sales penetration of third party, similar to Zalando’s target?
20.
How do brands perceive About You and Zalando’s platforms? Why would a brand partner with Zalando vs About You? Would it choose to partner with both? What are the dynamics there?
21.
How would increasing third-party share impact About You’s margin profile?
22.
How much of a risk is the traditional first-party model to About You in the short term? What is the inventory risk associated with that, given the company’s fashion focus?
23.
Could you outline the fundamentals of About You’s TME [technology, media and enabling] segment? What is offered to brands? How do they perceive these service offerings? What is the potential uptake?
24.
What drives growth for About You’s TME segment across its three product offerings – the commerce suite, which I think is the white label offer, 360 e-commerce and the ad-formatting service? Which one do you expect to have the most uptake and why?
25.
Why would brands choose to advertise on About You? What uptake do you expect for advertising?
26.
Why would a brand choose to partner with About You for the 360 e-commerce offer?
27.
What is the risk that brands use the 360 e-commerce data to divert sales to their own platforms?
28.
What marketing costs are required to support About You’s growth as a portion of revenue?
29.
What investment is needed in distribution or distribution centres to support About You’s growth? What fulfilment cost allocation would you expect?
30.
What does About You’s operating margin of around 6% for the DACH region tell us about the company’s future profitability? What are your medium-term profitability expectations?
31.
How soon do you think About You can achieve the EUR 3bn-4bn critical size you mentioned?