Raluca Radu (ANSWEAR.ro): E-commerce has become a habit for Romanian shoppers

In anticipation to the upcoming re:FOCUS on Retail, Couriers & Logistics 2024, Business Review sat down for an exclusive interview with Raluca Radu, CEO of ANSWEAR.ro, who will also be a speaker in the conference scheduled for February 13.

How did ecommerce evolve in 2023 and what are your estimates for 2024?

Official figures for the Romanian e-commerce market in 2023 are yet to be announced by ARMO and GPeC, but most likely from the estimates we have, the market has grown by around 10%, reaching around 7 billion EUR at the end of 2023. For us at Answear.ro, 2023 has meant a 20% increase in business and an enrichment of the brand portfolio in the online store, adding more and more premium brands. For us, the main focus is on improving the service offered to our customers further, but also on enriching and filtering the brands in the portfolio. The online fashion market also grew in 2023, but online fashion would also have the particularity that trying on and feeling the product is part of the decision making process. As a result, also in 2023 we could see consumers returning offline, even if only for research or product comparison. In any case, 2023 was a year of growth in fashion internationally, with the increase in travel, private events and more.

What are the main growth trends in ecommerce in 2024?

The market is stabilizing, e-commerce has become part of the habits of Romanian shoppers, and the general trend is to stabilize the idea of omnichannel – shoppers will remember the brands, the products they want to buy and will buy them either online or offline, expecting a seamless experience between the 2 channels for the same brand. Basically, we can say that at the consumer level there will be less and less differentiation between online and offline, with the 2 channels being considered by the consumer to be part of the same commerce experience. There is also a consolidation and polarisation of the audience for the main product categories in the market. With the development of marketplaces and the emergence of more strong international players in the main e-commerce verticals, there is also a trend towards a shrinking number of online shops accessed by the audience. As a result, building a strong brand will be increasingly important at market level.

On the other hand, it can be seen that as competition in the online sector has increased, so have costs. Also on a macro level we can see that the impact of the cookieless era and privacy measures in digital is being felt in terms of decreasing ease of targeting in online marketing. All this has also led to an increase in digital marketing costs in recent years and, consequently, a decrease in efficiency. In this context, it is increasingly important to invest in increasing brand awareness, but also in customer loyalty mechanisms. It is therefore natural that loyalty mechanisms, such as Answear Club in our case, are becoming increasingly important.

Will e-commerce grow to the level where it will overtake traditional retail in the coming years?

In the most developed markets in Europe, such as the UK, e-commerce has reached a rate of 33% of total retail. In Romania, we are somewhere below 10%. Therefore, the expectation is not necessarily to overtake, but to continue growing. E-commerce is a sales channel, one that is comfortable for the consumer for products that do not require in-depth product contact research. As a result, we expect it to grow, but it will not be able to replace or overtake offline commerce in all verticals, at least not in the current development conditions. However, coming back to the question, we expect e-commerce in Romania to continue to grow as the services and infrastructure for it develop. There is a growing adoption rate and services that facilitate the idea of omnichannel. We can talk here about delivery to lockers and fixed points, which now covers over 15% of deliveries in our case. There is also a diversification of payment methods used by consumers and an increasing adoption of innovation. In short, an increasingly educated consumer, which will certainly translate into growth in the online segment in the coming years.

About Raluca Radu

An e-commerce and Digital Marketing Specialist, Trainer, Speaker and proven Manager, Raluca Radu has been the Country Manager Romania – E-Commerce & Digital Marketing of ANSWEAR since October 2015. Under her leadership, ANSWEAR.ro fashion online shop operations and business were launched in Romania. A Digital Marketer passionate about growth hacking and launching or building businesses and brands in competitive markets, she is a Senior Digital Marketing & E-Commerce Manager with over 15 years of experience in digital strategy, online marketing, SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing, conversion rate optimization, Google Analytics, etc. One of my key strengths is that of recruiting and leading successful and results-oriented teams for online businesses.

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