An interview with David Osojnik
21. October, 2024David Osojnik is part of Medex Trade d.o.o., where he is responsible for the overall development of e-commerce. Together with his team, he manages Medex online stores in six markets, and they are also expanding to the Amazon marketplace in various markets.
For the last 10 years he has been working in the world of e-commerce, among others he was the director and founder of the online store Shoppster Slovenia, before that he managed Merkur’s webshop and participated in innovative e-commerce projects such as Kuponko.si, and before that he began his career as an (online) journalist at the newspaper Delo.
The success of his projects is reflected in the number of awards won, for example the bronze WEBSI award for webshop redesign and second place in the Netko competition (Best Webshop category).
Medex has won several awards for excellence in e-commerce. What key improvements did you implement to achieve this success, and what were the biggest challenges you faced during redesign?
That’s right, our fast-growing Medex webshop has already won a few awards, and we’re naturally very proud of that. It’s a further testament to the hard work of our entire team.
The key improvement is definitely the complete overhaul of the webshop, we have moved to a modern online platform, refreshed the visual identity, expanded the range and added new payment options – always keeping the customer and the user experience in mind.
As always, one of the toughest nuts to crack in the redesign or migration of an online shop is the technical aspect, as this is where we wanted to make the biggest step forward. Integrating the new platform with various external partners requires strategic planning and a consistent implementation plan. Still, you usually end up with MVP tasks …
At Medex you have established international sales, and you are present in several markets. How have you adapted your strategy to succeed in different foreign markets?
The Medex brand has been present in Slovenia and certain foreign markets for 70 years, which has made it easier for us to penetrate abroad. In just over two years, we have successfully penetrated 5 new markets with online sales, and we are planning an even more ambitious approach for the future.
We know that every market is its own story, and we try to adapt to different ones. For example – in (performance) advertising we do a lot of testing, we adapt the tone of communication to the individual market. The same applies to pricing policy, where we are dealing with different tax rates, as well as other important factors – the appropriate choice of a last mile delivery partner, the expected delivery time (and potential use of parcel machines), there are local payment methods, etc….
Our success abroad is thus a combination of many factors, but I must once again point out the extraordinary strength of the Medex brand and our extremely high quality products, which convince customers in all countries.
How did you face the challenges of launching and rebranding Shoppster in Slovenia, including setting up a TV sales channel? What were the key lessons learnt from this project?
Shoppster in Slovenia was a unique challenge, because together with the owners we had a very ambitious vision. We wanted to integrate different business activities (media and telecommunications) into a complete story through a new regional online store and thus redraw the boundaries of e-commerce in the wider region.
The biggest challenge I would point out is the introduction of the marketplace business model, which did not exist as such in Slovenia yet, but today the model has already been adopted by other retailers.
At the same time, opening our own TV sales channel – Shoppster TV – was of course a great challenge. From a creative point of view, we were wondering what format of the shows we should create, where we should film them, who our presenters would be…The business challenges were whether the suppliers would also support the project with their products, how the viewers would accept the new TV format…It was important to create a unique business model, which would be profitable in the end, of course.
“In just over two years, we have successfully penetrated 5 new markets with online sales, and we are planning an even more ambitious approach for the future.”
You stress the importance of automating and optimising back office processes. Which technological shifts have been most important for improving efficiency in online sales?
Continuous optimisation and upgrading of key processes, especially back office processes, and the search for automation opportunities seems to me to be an extremely important aspect of any business.
Like every company, we at Medex started by using AI tools in online sales for certain operational daily tasks. I can reveal that with the help of AI technology we have reduced the amount of operational work in a certain segment by at least 40%. This has increased the efficiency of the advertising segment and saved on the volume of work.
I ask myself and the whole team to constantly reflect – can we automate a certain daily “click” in a certain way? It is true that there is usually a cost for an investment, but in the long run, the return on investment is many times greater.
“I ask myself and the whole team to constantly reflect – can we automate a certain daily “click” in a certain way? It is true that there is usually a cost for an investment, but in the long run, the return on investment is many times greater.”
Medex products are already successful on Amazon with “Best Seller” and “Amazon’s Choice” ratings. What are the biggest advantages and disadvantages of selling on big platforms like Amazon compared to other channels?
I have to be honest and say that Medex started selling online on Amazon with a different team, which had good sales success at the beginning. Over the course of this year, we have consolidated the entire e-commerce business, which is reflected in the tremendous growth in overall online sales.
Definitely the biggest advantage of selling on large marketplace platforms like Amazon is the ability to enter a new market faster and with less risk. While this is always present, large platforms give access to an extremely large base of potential buyers. A strong brand such as Medex and high quality products are also very helpful, as a rich tradition in particular builds credibility with the buyers themselves.
Amazon has two business models, both of which are being tested, but we are currently still on the side of the so-called Vendor model, where Amazon also takes care of the entire logistics (warehousing and delivery to the customer) as well as customer support. This puts less pressure on back-office departments, but also brings additional constraints on potential rapid growth.
Can you tell us a bit about what you will be talking about at this year’s E-commerce Jam?
Of course I can reveal some of it 😊
The topic of the talk will be (Be)e-commerce / 70 years of tradition meets e-commerce.
We will briefly go through the rich history of the company, which until 2022 was involved in the development, production and sales through traditional retail channels (pharmacies, specialty stores, big retailers…).
We will look a little deeper into how Medex has implemented e-commerce and how we have embarked on a complete transformation of (online) sales.
I will highlight some of the key milestones in the last two years that we are most proud of. We have made a real e-commerce business plan, we are constantly expanding into new markets, we have introduced bundled sales, and I would even dare to say that we have one of the most effective advertising teams in the country. Online sales have also become the nr.1 sales channel for certain new products, which was unthinkable not long ago.
I hope that our (Be)e-commerce will inspire someone else to seriously venture into the wonderful but challenging world of online sales.
EVENT INFORMATION
DATE – November 7th
START- 18:00
LOCATION – Viba Film – Stegne 5, 1000 Ljubljana
Want to hear more from David?
Join us for an evening full of excitement, knowledge sharing, great food, and live music!
Let’s raise the bar for regional e-commerce.