Application digitizes contact between Brás wholesalers and shopkeepers

​One of the largest wholesale clothing hubs in Brazil, Brás, in the central region of São Paulo, is undergoing a new digitalization process, focused on mobile applications that bridge the gap between local businesses and retailers across the country who buy their products. pieces there.

Before, they relied on direct contact with wholesalers through a few websites, messaging apps and, mainly, so-called “advisors”, informal workers who buy stock in person and ship the items to these merchants across the country – many by means of chartered buses stocked with merchandise, which take clothes and accessories to small and medium-sized shopkeepers from north to south. The region is considered the main distribution center for ready-to-delivery clothing in Brazil.

New companies such as Zax, which received BRL 32 million from the Atlantico fund in October, in a round that also included investments from the Caravela Capital, FJ Labs, Canary and GFC funds, now connect the two bridges of this market via a marketplace application.

The idea for the business came after entrepreneur Bruno Ballardie, 37, sold the eÓtica eyewear e-commerce store to French group Essilor, in 2015. The successful venture created the desire to continue in the lifestyle market, says Ballardie, who joined Fernando Zanatta, former technology director at Dafiti and Buscapé, to get the idea off the ground.

The duo decided to target the wholesale-oriented marketplace model, a market still little explored in the country. The share of online retail sales jumped from 6% to 11% during the first year of the pandemic, according to data from the Mastercard SpendingPulse index. ABComm (Brazilian Association of Electronic Commerce) also estimates that, in the same period, e-commerce has come to account for more than 10% of total retail revenue, compared to 5% in 2019.

Entrepreneurs estimate, however, that wholesale — which in 2020 earned BRL 287.8 billion in Brazil, according to Abad (Brazilian Association of Wholesalers and Distributors) — has an ecommerce share of less than 1%.

The B2B fashion wholesale market in the country is a segment with an estimated revenue of US$ 445 billion, according to the entrepreneurs. It is a market to be explored and developed, says Ballardie, and his objective is to make the company a fast-growing business, inspired by successful models such as the Chinese cash and carry giant Alibaba and, in Brazil, Mercado Livre.

The first challenge was to make the application known and used by Brazilian, Chinese, Bolivian and Arab merchants in front of the more than 15 thousand stores in the effervescent cultural melting pot that forms the Brás region. “It was difficult work, because it is a pulverized market. At the same time, we benefited from the change in the behavior of shopkeepers in recent years. Today, they are used to Instagram, WhatsApp… The reality of stores is cell phone in hand”, he says. Ballardie.

The application aims to unify the options for purchasing accessories and clothing items from fashion retailers throughout Brazil on a single platform. According to the co-founder, the solution now has more than 1,000 registered suppliers and 50,000 buyers, as a result of intense efforts to capture, publicize and improve the solutions offered, and users report gains in productivity in operations, says Ballardie.

But assisting in the day-to-day operations of merchants is only part of the business. One of the attractions for Brás customers was the low working capital of merchants, says the entrepreneur, which made the region suitable for the development of a solution that offers financial services allied to the marketplace platform. In addition to shortening the distance between stores and products, the company now seeks to facilitate credit and payment.

The strategy of offering credit on sales platforms, adopted by giants such as Via, seeks to unite demand, logistical capacity, curation and inventory of online markets with payment, financing, insurance and loan solutions in the same ecosystem. In addition to generating new sources of income, the model expands the market and can reduce acquisition costs that impact the final consumer.

Zax already offers interest-free credit options, upon evaluation, to retailers across the country. It has also mapped customer risk profiles and designed payment solutions for the sector. The idea is to expand financial activities. “We work to be a marketplace whose main value proposition is linked to credit generation”, says the founder.

The company grew in the pandemic, when retailers turned to e-commerce to continue online sales and ease the restrictions on opening trade necessary in the periods of greatest mortality from the health crisis, and expanded its product portfolio to also include toys, shoes and beauty. The idea is to continue focusing on products in the sector, but expand the platform’s operations to other clothing trade centers in the country, such as Brusque (SC) and Fortaleza (CE).