Priti is the number one wholesale supplier of Corona beer in Mexico. Supplying mainly small corner stores, Priti also supplies a range of everyday items, including soft drinks, confectionery, cleaning products and groceries.
Priti is a wholesale distributor to corner shops based in Mexico City. They supply a wide range of goods to businesses in the Mexican informal sector; small stores, which are normally family-run and in Mexico make up about 30% of GDP.
As Emmanuel from Priti explains there are issues with their clients: “They often lack access to finance and best practice, and may have low literacy and overall communication skills. We’re using technology to aid this communication, which is a really unique proposition in this marketplace.”
Emmanuel has seen some changes with the move to B2B.store.
“Because there’s no set way of how each business in the informal sector works, there was a range of things happening before we launched the eCommerce store. For example, historically some customers would have to get an Uber to pick up their goods from us. They would leave the Uber running while they collected their order, load it in and take it back to the shop. Now we have the added value of being able to let them order online and deliver to them.”
“In Mexico, B2B hadn’t really adopted eCommerce, so we were one of the first to offer it and were maybe even a little bit early. That meant we were ready for right now though, which is the perfect time and eCommerce is taking off more. When we launched, there were only two or three other players trying to do what we did. Now in the past few months several companies are trying to do eCommerce with the kind of stores we do business with.”
When you spoke about eCommerce with businesses five months ago, out of every ten, perhaps nine were hesitant to order through eCommerce, but now conversations are much easier. Out of ten now, I would say six want to use eCommerce. And from now it will only grow even more.
I would say for sure it was important and by far it may have been the most important factor. The audience we speak to would not know even the very basic English words you need to use the eCommerce store, like ‘exit’, for example. It was crucial to get the language right and we did.
The next steps for us will be in terms of pricing on the operational side. We’re going to have one person to constantly benchmark the prices, to make sure we compete on the prices we offer. It might seem a small detail, but it’s a large advantage from the eCommerce – as soon as we put up to date prices on the store, revenues increased, so having constantly refreshed prices will help us to provide those prices to the audience instantly. It’s a very price-sensitive market, even a few cents make a huge difference so having the ability to update these instantly will mean we can be very competitive, particularly on the top 20% of items we sell. We’re giving the perception of a good price instantly and people are acting on that pricing instantly as well.
We are one of the first B2B eCommerce vendors to market in Mexico
People were hesitant to order through eCommerce, not anymore
Our store’s language is localised to an audience who only speak basic English