From January 13 to 19, 2019, Retailys.com representative, Petr Heller, was a member of the business delegation accompanying Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Minister of Industry and Trade Marta Nováková on their journey through Asia. Retailys.com was the only Czech startup that took part in the delegation. During the journey, it introduced its e-commerce solutions in Singapore, Thailand and India.
Retailys currently operates its subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, United Kingdom and Singapore. It also has customers in Germany. And Singapore was the main reason, why company took part of this mission. This year, it plans to open a smaller office in India where there is a large community of skilled programmers. “The current problem with lack of IT employees is being successfully resolved by outsourcing to Asia, with which we have good experience,” Heller comments, adding that the external staff also brings the necessary know-how about Asian e-commerce.
“When compared to some Asian countries, e-commerce in the Czech Republic is often lagging behind in many ways. Just for comparison, in Singapore, 60% of online goods sales come from abroad. In our country, the number is much smaller, even though we are an economy with a strong emphasis on export. We’re starting to change that,” says Heller. “Companies are starting to realize that just one e-shop is far from enough if they want to be successful and also sell abroad. At the same time they faced a problem of no product being available at the market that would make it easy to manage several different e-shops at the same time. But Retailys can do exactly that. In addition, it is a cloud system accessible from a web browser, so companies only pay monthly fees and do not have to deal with any complicated installations or take care of subsequent updates. Everything is automatic,” adds Petr Heller, founder of Retailys.com s.r.o.
In Singapore, Petr Heller attended a gala dinner held by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in the presidential palace. During the subsequent Czech-Singapore business forum, he successfully negotiated with the government body Enterprise Singapore on an easier acquisition of the so-called entrepass, a special visa for foreign entrepreneurs setting up a Singapore based company.
“Putting the entire B2B meetings directly under the auspices of the Prime Minister gave the meetings the necessary importance, and we managed to establish contacts that will simplify conducting business in Singapore for Czechs. Singapore is regularly ranked among the world’s most advanced startup ecosystems, and we think that facilitating start-ups and their development – and not just in the attractive Southeast Asia region – also fits into the startup support strategy currently being presented by the government under the Development Strategy 2019–2030 initiative,” explains Heller, adding that setting up a Singapore subsidiary will provide many other innovative startups and other businesses with access to the fast-growing markets of Southeast Asia, currently home to approximately 650 million people.
On the last day of the trip, Retailys.com attended the opening of a Czech pavilion during the prestigious Vibrant Summit in Gujarat, India, under the patronage of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To get closely acquainted with the practices of the Indian business environment and establish important contacts here was one of the goals of participating in this mission. The Czech pavilion presented major Czech brands such as Škoda Auto and Home Credit. “For Retailys, it was an honor to stand alongside these traditional and great Czech companies, and it turns out that startups are beginning to form an important part of the modern economy, towards which the Czech Republic is starting to transform,” concluded Petr Heller.
About Retailys.com
Retailys.com is a fast-growing Czech e-commerce startup, the first in the Czech Republic to develop the so-called e-commerce omni-channel system, a platform that allows retailers to sell their merchandise through many different sales channels at the same time – businesses can thus easily create their own foreign e-shops, manage their accounts on global markets such as Amazon or eBay, export products to social networks, etc. The system includes advanced product inventory management and warehouse management, orders from all sales channels are displayed in one place and easy to navigate. Using API, new sales channels can be easily integrated to offer products at multiple sites.
Retailys.com launched its activities in 2017 and soon established itself at the CEE e-commerce product market. In the first half of 2018, it successfully passed the CzechAccelerator acceleration program in Singapore by Czechinvest. In October 2018, it got an investment of $400.000 on the Fundlift crowdfunding investment platform. Last year alone, companies used Retailys.com to sell goods for more than $5.000.000.
