How Ricardo.ch wants to score against Amazon & Co.

You have been the new CEO of Ricardo.ch since the beginning of the year. What are your goals for the online auction house?

Francesco Vass: My goal is to continue to drive the growth of Ricardo.ch. I want to achieve this by putting the focus back on the users - all users, private and commercial, buyers and sellers. In recent years, the end user has taken a back seat due to the changes in ownership, management and strategy at Ricardo.ch. We want to change that.

How is that supposed to work?

We have been completely rebuilding our marketplace from scratch using the latest programming languages for several months now and are becoming fresher and more modern. In the current development phase, the functionalities are still the same as before. But in a few months we will have improved the payment modalities, for example. Today, the payment process after an auction is still too time-consuming.

Can you give an example?

Today's users expect e-commerce platforms to make logistics processing faster and more convenient. We have some catching up to do. We want to be on the same level as our competitors. I also want to support our employees. I want to offer them the best possible working environment so that they can perform at their best. We can do this by promoting transparency, trust and employee empowerment. Good cooperation is important. Employees are our most important asset.

Do you want to increase the number of employees at Ricardo.ch?

We currently have no such plans. Around 150 employees at our three locations in Zug, Valbonne and now also a development team in Serbia are a good basis.

How did the integration of Ricardoshops.ch into Ricardo.ch go?

We completed this at the end of 2016, which was before my time at Ricardo.ch. It was well received by customers. There were only a few negative reactions because many sellers were already active on Ricardo.ch at the time or had migrated their offers to us. The idea was to bundle all e-commerce activities on one platform so that customers no longer had to jump back and forth.

What significance does the marketplace of the former Ricardoshops.ch have for Ricardo.ch?

A very central one. We need both private and professional sellers. It is our job to match supply and demand. We are constantly optimizing this.

How do you react to the emergence of international competitors such as Amazon or Aliexpress?

A friend of mine recently ordered Airpod copies on Wish for 13 US dollars and after six weeks only received one Airpod, which was also significantly larger than the original. He didn't know that the headphones were sold separately and had to wait another six weeks for the second Airpod. We always ask ourselves what the customer looks for when shopping. Is it the price, the quality, the support or the warranty? For most, it's probably a combination of all factors. But a certain segment only looks at the price. You have to accept that, we can't satisfy the entire market. We concentrate on our strengths, such as security, fast delivery and product availability. In addition, our customer service is available from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and until 6 p.m. at weekends. Many other providers do not offer this.

Do you have expansion plans?

No, our focus is on the Swiss market. I can't say where we will be in ten years' time, but we will be concentrating on Switzerland in the near future.

How do you prevent counterfeiting?

I was already dealing with this issue at Tutti.ch. A dedicated fraud team at Ricardo.ch is in contact with various brand manufacturers to check the product range. It would be ideal if we could use algorithms to decide from the images whether a product is a fake. But I don't think anyone has gotten that far yet. Nevertheless, there are other possibilities that we could introduce through automated processes, such as requesting proof of purchase. But nothing is planned yet.

What impact is increasing digitalization having on your company?

We know nothing other than digital. Ricardo.ch has been purely digital since the beginning 18 years ago. That's why we've always looked for employees who are digitally fit. That's why we don't have to guide them through a digital process.

Did you find digitally savvy employees in Switzerland or did you have to search internationally?

We have 25 different nationalities at Ricardo.ch, so we are very international. Our challenge with digitalization is that users are becoming more digital. According to statistics, there are an average of 230 unused objects in every Swiss household. It would be great if everyone already had a digital inventory of their objects at home. If they want to sell something, all they would have to do is press a button. We are working on ideas to simplify the inventory, so in future users could conveniently record objects using a smartphone camera, for example.

What role do agile methods play for Ricardo.ch?

We have been using agile methods in software development for some time now. However, we are now also agile in other processes at the company. When we introduce new processes, we do so with an initial version, see how it is received and bring out an improved version. We work iteratively.

When are the peaks at Ricardo.ch?

The seasonality is similar to that in retail. We also notice spring cleaning, when many people want to get rid of their unused items and buy new items for the summer at the same time. And something similar happens in the fall. Christmas business is also very important for us.

How do you prevent the system from being overloaded?

By currently migrating a large part of our infrastructure to the cloud. This enables us to scale up our own infrastructure at the touch of a button. We don't have any major peaks from one day to the next that would require a massive increase in capacity.

Is the cloud migration being carried out in collaboration with Tamedia?

It happens in exchange with Tamedia. Of course, we document and share our approach so that the other Tamedia companies can benefit from it. But the development takes place at Ricardo.ch.

Interview: Fabian Pöschl, Netzwoche. This article is from Netzwoche.