In this case study, you’ll learn the story of a Hungarian webshop that successfully entered the Romanian market and maximized its sales in the new market within 3 months with the support of Consulting Hungary and Shoprenter!

Do you want to explore new markets in Central Europe, but have doubts about how to do it while minimizing risks and maximizing sales? Entering a new market is always a leap into the unknown because you need to create an attractive website for potential customers, find channels to reach them, and make contracts with logistics providers offering the best terms, just to mention a few of the common challenges.

It’s always a great help to have a platform that allows a seamless transition from one country to another along with a consulting agency to make all this happen as smoothly as possible. In this article, we share the story of a Hungarian webshop expanding into the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region with the help of Shoprenter and Consulting Hungary, two companies providing comprehensive services to e-commerce businesses in international expansion.

Shoprenter and Consulting Hungary:

Shoprenter offers a comprehensive solution for webshops: you can create your own online store in minutes using ready-made templates and features. Their platform provides modern and reliable tools, integration with numerous sales channels and logistics service providers. Additionally, they support your online store’s marketing and optimization efforts, providing assistance and training.

Consulting Hungary is an experienced service provider assisting Hungarian e-commerce entrepreneurs in international expansion. Their expertise includes international customer service, market analysis, localization of online stores, logistics, fulfillment, last-mile delivery, returns management, marketing, and business consultancy. With over 11 years of experience in the international expansion of webshops, Consulting Hungary collaborates with countries within and outside Europe.

And how can you realize your expansion plans with the support of Shoprenter and Consulting Hungary?

The following list guides you through the process:

• Market research
• Localization: translation and audit
• Customer service
• Logistics and fulfillment
• Marketing and marketplaces
• Legal and financial background

This list outlines the fundamental challenges that webshops have to face when expanding abroad. Let’s see how Shoprenter and Consulting Hungary helped a Hungarian webshop overcome these obstacles.

Market Research:

Entering a new market without proper analysis of competitors and local conditions can be risky. Why take this risk? A quick market analysis can save you a lot of resources (time, energy, and money).

The Hungarian webshop mentioned above* primarily targeted the sale of bicycles and sports equipment in Romania and other CEE countries. They were already familiar with some of the competitors there, as many of them were already present in Hungary, but they were very cautious about entering the new market due to hidden factors.

*At the request of our client, we will not disclose their name.

And this is where their collaboration with Consulting Hungary began. We examined the most popular marketplaces (such as eMAG and Okazii in Romania) and their competitors in terms of the most popular products in the product category, and then conducted a comprehensive price analysis for them. Of course, price is not the only factor to consider, so we also analyzed competitors in terms of shipping time and cost, possible payment methods, and consumer trends.

After providing our client with all the necessary information, it was obvious that the competition was tough, so we advised them to proceed in small steps. However, since Romania showed very high potential, they decided to embark on the project.

Localization: Translation and Audit:

Localization refers to two interconnected processes: translating content and adapting the online store to local customs and needs.

We translated our client’s website directly within Shoprenter, as we could easily install the Romanian language with just a few clicks in the language settings. Then we translated and imported the product descriptions in CSV format, so after the first phase of the process, we could already check them.

Translation and localization require versatile expertise. During the localization of webshops, our team of experts works in three main areas:

• Translation: Checking machine translations is the first step, and this is what we did for our Hungarian client: our Romanian native translators reviewed and corrected the content to avoid grammatical and stylistic errors.
• Technical translation: Technical descriptions of bicycles and sports equipment required more attention. Therefore, we researched technical terms and ensured the use of appropriate terminology.
• Marketing: In addition to translation accuracy, we also had to consider the terminology we used for SEO purposes, so that potential customers could easily find the webshop on Google.

And the next step is the audit, which is one of the most important services provided by Consulting Hungary and the basis of our quality assurance. The audit involves double-checking the translated menus, subpages, and the overall content and functionality of the website by Consulting Hungary’s Romanian native e-commerce experts. This ensures that the website fully meets the expectations of local customers.

In this case as well, the audit outlined the challenges our Hungarian client had to overcome, especially in localizing features such as local delivery methods, payment providers, local address and phone number, local rating systems, and many more.

Customer Service:

If you work in e-commerce, you surely know the crucial role customer service plays in this business sector. A reliable customer service is essential for every successful webshop: customer service representatives not only increase reliability but also expedite handling of returns and warranty processes.

We provided our Hungarian client with a Romanian-speaking call center team with extensive expertise in e-commerce management and call center operations. Due to their location, the team was more than familiar with the Romanian market, so their experience was invaluable in our Hungarian client’s expansion. Thanks to their expertise, the entire expansion process was characterized by smooth and flexible communication and workflow. We’ll discuss this further in the next section, where we’ll explain how the well-trained call center team led to new solutions in optimizing delivery and customer experience.

Logistics and Fulfillment:

The next task was to find the optimal solution for logistics and domestic deliveries.

Initially, we dispatched shipments from our logistics hub in Budapest to Romania, but we quickly moved to the next level. We recommended to our client that the fulfillment of high-turnover products be done from Romania, while low-turnover products continue to be shipped directly from Hungary. This hybrid solution enabled a much more efficient supply chain in terms of both delivery time and logistics costs. This was also attractive to Romanian customers, who generally prefer fast and cheap shipping. Romanian customers also value delivery to parcel lockers and the option of cash on delivery in local currency, so we also implemented these during localization.

The most critical part of logistics and delivery is, of course, the integration of logistics partners into the webshop engine. We at Consulting Hungary recommend that you make a thorough analysis of required integration for every destination market to ensure all integrations needed for expansion are covered by your webshop engine. The lack of proper integrations causes expanding businesses to run into severe difficulties: unplanned financial costs, technical challenges and serious delay in project implementation.

Lucky for our Hungarian customer, the suggested solution was easy to carry out as Shoprenter offered integrations with all the necessary sales channels and logistics providers, enabling easy management of orders and shipments, so they would only have to set up an integration for their logistic partners and courier companies.

However, life is never that easy. Although the integrations with Shoprenter were working perfectly fine, their delivery success rate was only about 73% in the first three weeks. 

And here we return to our local call center team. With the help of Consulting Hungary’s local customer service, we first identified the two problematic factors. The main reasons for the low success rate were the undelivered packages and the high number of abandoned shopping carts. Then, we found the solution. We approached the problem from two directions: 1) contacting customers who did not receive their orders, and 2) speaking with customers who abandoned their orders midway.

It turned out that the high shipping costs deterred most Romanian customers, and even if they placed orders, the courier company couldn’t always reach them on the day of delivery. One reason was incorrectly provided phone numbers during ordering, but most commonly, deliveries failed due to inaccurate addresses. Although Romania has had a postal code system in place since 2003, many Romanian customers still provide outdated postal codes when shopping online.

Based on our advice, our client implemented two solutions to counter these problems and increase sales:

• They reduced shipping costs while increasing product prices, thus encouraging more customers to proceed to checkout and place successful orders.
• Our call center team continued to optimize the shipping process. With Shoprenter’s integrations with logistic providers, all of this was a straightforward task.

At the end of this comprehensive process, the efforts of Consulting Hungary’s team in Romania literally paid off: in the following weeks, our client’s delivery success rate reached an average of 95%.

Marketing and Marketplaces

When you are about to expand to another country, you have to establish brand awareness and recognition in the new market in the most creative and cost-efficient way possible. Market research can tell you a lot about trends, customer preferences, and motivations in the target market, but choosing effective marketing tools is another question. Consulting Hungary can assist in developing an effective marketing strategy and selecting suitable tools and partners.

Even in 2023, Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform in Romania, nearly just as popular as Google among search engines. That’s why our marketing team focused on Google and Meta Ads for our Hungarian customer expanding in Romania, and their flexible management of seasonal campaigns allowed them to harmonize marketing and sales, so that they could implement their strategies already established in the Hungarian market, advertising more outdoor sports equipment from April to October and more indoor ones from November to March.

As for marketplaces, our customer had already been using Shoprenter’s Hungarian eMAG plugin, and they could also trust our experienced customer service team with the management of the Romanian panel. Shoprenter also provided an easy fix for multiple kinds of XML feeds, so we could easily introduce our customer to every necessary platform including other marketplaces, price comparison sites, Facebook, Google etc.

Legal and Financial Background

International expansion requires serious legal and financial planning. Like with other services, cost-effectiveness is important here, but it's even more crucial to bear in mind that complying with often-changing national regulations is extremely difficult without proper legal advice.

The most important legal documents that need to be localized are primarily the general terms and conditions (GTC) and the privacy policies. At Consulting Hungary, we not only prepared localized versions of these contracts for our Hungarian client, but we also ensured that they could consult with the network of Romanian lawyers working with us regarding any long-term questions that might arise.

In terms of invoicing, the Shoprenter integration of Számlázz.hu that they already used in their Hungarian webshop was also a feasible solution for the Romanian market, as Számlázz.hu can generate invoices in many languages as well as in many local currencies (such as Romanian and RON in this case).

In the localisation report, we also suggested that they open a local bank account in Romania. Research indicates that customers are more likely to trust the seller and consider a purchase if they are given a Romanian bank account, so they can avoid paying extra fees that might discourage them from placing an order. Of course, it’s also an important factor from the seller’s point of view: not only does having a local bank account increase sales, it also entails fewer additional costs from the recipient of the transfer.

Conclusion

International expansion is an excellent opportunity to grow your online store and increase turnover. However, it is a process that requires proper preparation and support. Therefore, you should consider utilizing the services of Shoprenter and Consulting Hungary, which offer comprehensive solutions for e-commerce, assisting entrepreneurs in entering new markets.

Shoprenter provides a stable and modern platform for your online store, while Consulting Hungary handles logistics, customer service, marketing, and consultancy in the local market. This allows you to save time and money and avoid common problems and risks associated with international expansion.

In the case of this Hungarian customer, it took no more than 30 days from project initiation to sales start for Consulting Hungary and Shoprenter to make their expansion plans happen in Romania, and it took another 2 months to maximize their sales with the flexible solutions for localisation, customer support, marketing, and optimisation of logistics.

If you want to learn more about the services of Shoprenter and Consulting Hungary and how to conquer a new market with your webshop, contact us! Our experience and professional support guarantee your success in the new market.

For more information, visit the the websites of Shoprenter and Consulting Hungary website:

Consulting Hungary: www.consultinghungary.com

Shoprenter: www.shoprenter.hu